Increase in negative COVID-19 tests in Shasta County can help get us out of purple tier
REDDING, Calif. — On Tuesday, Shasta County moved into the most restrictive purple tier due to the spike in COVID-19 cases.
And while it seems people feel hopeless not being able to contribute to helping Shasta County move away from the purple tier, there is a way you can help and that’s by getting tested even if you aren’t infected.
But what is the importance of a positivity rate?
According to Shasta County Health and Human Services spokesperson, Kerri Schuette, the COVID-19 positivity rate is determined by an equation.
The number of positive tests divided by the total number of tests conducted in a seven-day period, multiplied by 100.
And while having more positive cases drives that number up, having more negative tests in the picture for Shasta County can essentially help bring that rate down and help us move away from the purple tier.
“I can totally relate,” said Shannon Eckelbarger, a Clinician at Shasta College’s COVID-19 Testing Center. “I don’t like to get tested either personally and I totally understand that and I’m thinking - ‘If I dont have symptoms I don’t really want to get tested.’ But if we really do want to keep the city open, it would be more beneficial to have people come in, just get the test done, so we can show a lot more negatives compared to our positives.”
Schuette also shared with KRCR the importance of the testing volume in our county.
“If our average testing volume is higher than the average testing volume in the state, we essentially get extra credit for our case rate which helps determine which tier we’re moving to.”
For example, Shasta County saw 22.9 cases per day, but because we had a very high testing volume the state reduced our case rate to 15.5 - which is a roughly 7-cases-per-day difference.
“The more tests we do, the higher that total number of tests is going to be so that reduces our positivity rate,” Schuette says.
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