San Francisco Bay Area ‘Hot Spots’ Fueling Area’s Latest COVID-19 Wave

SOLANO COUNTY, Calif. (KGO) – Experts say unvaccinated Bay Area neighborhoods are responsible for most of the transmission fueling our fourth outbreak of COVID-19, and there are a few areas especially that stand out.

Our data journalism team has compiled COVID-19 vaccination rates for zip codes that have at least 5,000 or more people who are part of the population 12 years of age and over eligible for the vaccine. The areas ranked at the top of the list are the pockets of Solano and Alameda counties. The list includes the postal codes of Berkeley, Vacaville, Suisun City, Dixon and Fairfield – where 45 to 60% of the eligible population living in each of these postal codes are not fully immunized.

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“Much of this transmission is in households and transmits the virus to other people,” said Dr George Rutherford of UCSF. “Delta is so much more contagious.”

Bay Area health officials are pushing for more vaccinations, especially in counties where the level of community transmission is considered high.

“Fairfield is legitimately inferior to what we want it to be,” said Dr Bela Matyas, a Solano County health worker. “It’s a neighborhood that is very economically stressed. It’s a neighborhood where we have put a lot of effort into pop-up clinics.”

Dr Matyas told ABC7 that his teams have stepped up efforts to prioritize vaccinations in high-risk postcodes by organizing contextual clinics and door-to-door services for homebound seniors, schools and businesses.

“We even created sites at McDonald’s,” he said. “We are also going directly to the homeless camps.”

Solano County currently has the lowest vaccination rate in the Bay Area.

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“The 30 percent of our residents who have not been vaccinated, I wouldn’t describe them as hesitant as much as I would describe them as reluctant,” he said. “They just don’t want to be vaccinated.”

Dr Matyas said the reluctance stems from fear of side effects and mistrust of the government. He is particularly concerned about the 94533 postcode in Fairfield.

“This particular zip code is a very diverse zip code that represents a lot of those concerns,” he said.

Solano County health officials have hosted nearly two dozen pop-up clinics in zip code 94533, but Matyas said only about five people showed up per clinic.

“It’s worrying,” he said. “We have to increase these numbers.”

CDC COVID-19 Transmission Levels by U.S. County

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