More Than 50K Castro Valley Residents Fully Vaccinated

CASTRO VALLEY, CA — Castro Valley residents have answered the call for the coronavirus vaccine. County health department statistics released Thursday show that 51,474 residents here are fully vaccinated.

Of the 126,718 COVID-19 cases reported in Alameda County since the start of the pandemic, 4,037 have been in Castro Valley.

The death toll in the county is 1,538.

Right now, some 5 dozen people are hospitalized for COVID-19 in the county, with 15 of them in the ICU.

While hospitalizations are higher than a month ago, they are far lower than in January when the winter surge ravaged the county with more than 450 daily hospital patients.

This week, both the University of California and California State University announced a requirement that students, faculty and staff receive booster shots.

Health care workers in California have until Feb. 1 to get a COVID-19 booster shot, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Wednesday at a news conference in Oakland.

Newsom announced three strategies to help protect residents from COVID-19.

The requirement that health care workers receive a booster shot was announced Tuesday and the governor made it formal Wednesday.

The other two strategies include providing COVID-19 tests for school children before they return to school from the holiday break and expanding the hours of COVID-19 testing sites.

"Two doses is great," Newsom said. "The booster is a game-changer."

"That third dose is needed," he said.