Hoopa Valley Reservation sees uptick in Covid-19 cases, currently monitoring 23 active cases

HOOPA, Calif. (KIEM) — The Hoopa Valley Reservation has seen a big increase of Covid-19 cases this week.

On Monday, the Hoopa Valley Tribal Office of Emergency Services reported there were 6 active cases on the reservation. Then on Tuesday, Public Health Officer Eva Smith reported 12 new positive cases. As of late Wednesday night, there are a total of 24 cases on the reservation with 23 of them being active.

The increase in cases prompted the closure of non-emergency operations for the next 2 weeks to allow for contact tracing and individual tribal departments to establish reopening safety plans. According to Dr. Frankovich, the Public Health Department takes the lead on contact tracing investigations and works cooperatively with the Hoopa Valley Tribe.

“We all communicate quite readily on this. Those cases actually do become part of our county data. They don’t always become part of our data on the same day that those test results are available to Hoopa. We need to receive copies of those test results and vet those before they become part of our case count,” Frankovich says.

Dr. Frankovich reminds the community that every resident of Humboldt County ends up being counted in our numbers once for their positive case.