SANTA CRUZ COUNTY—Santa Cruz County health officials announced Friday that two more county residents have died of Covid-19 complications, bringing the local death toll to eight.
One was a man in his early 60s and the other was a woman in her late 90s. Both had underlying conditions, county health officials said.
Covid-19 was a “contributing factor” in each death, county health officials said.
The woman was hospitalized for more than two weeks. The man died in his home. He tested positive for Covid-19 after his death. He did not seek medical care while ill, county health officials said.
The County urged residents to seek medical care when they need it, noting that the federal Families First Coronavirus Response Act provides access to coverage for Covid-19 testing and related treatment from a qualified Medi-Cal provider at no cost to the person being treated. This coverage is for people whose insurance doesn’t cover Covid-19 care or who don’t have insurance at all.Â
More than 100 people in the county have required hospitalization while sick with Covid-19.
There have been 1,371 known Covid-19 cases in Santa Cruz County, including 989 known active cases, according to information last updated Thursday by County health officials. Those numbers may be an undercount, though, due to a computer glitch that created a backlog of almost 300,000 tests in the state’s reporting program. The glitch has been fixed, but a county spokesperson said it could still take a few more days for the disease control team to review all of the backlogged data from the state.Â
Statewide, as of Wednesday, there have been 593,141 Covid-19 cases and 10,808 deaths, according to the California Department of Public Health.
