Coronavirus in rural America (Part LIII): back to California

A few California counties backed off their re-openings this week as local coronavirus cases surged, if only a little bit.  Here's the story out of Sonoma County (which many label "north Bay," referring to the San Francisco Bay Area), and here's the one out of Lassen County, population 30,000, in the far northeast part of the state.  Lassen was also a focus of Governor Newsom's press conference today, along with Imperial County, population 174,528, in the far southeastern part of the state.  Lassen is nonmetro while Imperial is metro, but both are sparsely populated overall.  These two counties, both "rural" in the imaginary of the average Californian, supported the Governor's message of localism and local control of re-opening.  They also illustrated the message of support for rural difference.

And here is a New Yorker story out of the tiny town of Bolinas, population 1,620, at the end of a peninsula in Marin County, also in the north Bay.  It's "one road in and out" character made it possible to isolate and test more effectively than most places.

And here is a Los Angeles Times story about an outbreak at Chuckawalla Valley State prison, in eastern Riverside County.  Here's an excerpt about other prison outbreaks in the Golden State, a few in rural locales:

The recent outbreak places Chuckawalla amid a group of five institutions — the California Institute for Men in Chino, Avenal State Prison in Kings County, California State Prison in Los Angeles County and the California Institution for Women in Corona — that account for 13% of the state prison system’s population but 98% of its confirmed cases of COVID-19.

Postscript from May 29:  Sonoma County Sheriff says he won't enforce public health orders re business closures.