TRUCKEE, Calif. April 9, 2020 – As of Wednesday, April 8th, Nevada County had 34 confirmed cases of the COVID-19 virus. Twenty-four of these cases — 70 percent – were in eastern Nevada County, specifically the Truckee area. We are a coronavirus hotspot.
Our hospital, fine as it is, is small, with a limited number of beds available for intensive-care patients. It is critical that these beds be available for local COVID-19 cases. If you are contemplating visiting our area, please wait until the Governor allows nonessential travel.
And the same applies if you’d like to come up to your second home. If you have a second home, you are indeed a member of our community. Our hospital, however, is concerned that its facilities could be quickly overwhelmed and unable to serve those individuals currently here who may require hospitalization.
If you are now residing in eastern Nevada County and have another home in an area with a higher-capacity health care system, our public health officer advises that you may be better off returning to that home to shelter in place. Our models predict that the number of people who will seek care here could easily exceed the number of hospital beds available, and given how few hospital beds there are in the North Tahoe / Truckee area, it would likely happen sooner here than in the rest of Nevada County.
The task for all of us is to continue following safety guidelines and to make informed decisions that will protect the health of our families, our neighbors, and ourselves. Eastern Nevada County is a place where people routinely step up and do the right thing. Let’s keep that ethic at the forefront of our minds as we face this public-health crisis together.
Stay Home. Save Lives. Take Care of Nevada County.