Santa Cruz County misses yellow tier by less than 1%

CENTRAL COAST, Calif. (KION) Santa Cruz, Monterey and San Benito Counties are all still in the orange tier of the state's Blueprint for a Safer Economy after this week's update, and Santa Cruz County officials say they just missed moving to the least restrictive tier.

The county said in a social media post that it did not move to the yellow tier because there was a slight uptick in the case rate, and they missed the requirements for the yellow tier by one-tenth of 1%.

Because of the small uptick, Santa Cruz County will remain in the orange tier for at least another two weeks.

In Monterey County, the adjusted case rate is at 2.2 per 100,000, but the case rate needs to be less than 2.0 to move to the yellow tier. The county's positivity rate and health equity positivity rate are both within the requirements for the yellow tier, but all three metrics need to meet the requirements for two consecutive weeks before it can ease restrictions.

To move to the yellow tier, San Benito County would need to have an adjusted case rate of less than 2.0, a positivity rate of less than 2.0& and a health equity positivity rate of less than 2.2%, but its adjusted case rate is 7.4 and its positivity rate is 3.6%.