Photo: Jeff Barnard, Associated Press
This file photo from February 22, 2014 shows a business in downtown Cedarville, California in Modoc County. Rural California County is challenging Governor Gavin Newsom’s coronavirus closure order and has become the first county in the state to allow reopening of nonessential businesses. Diners can enter restaurants in Modoc County, in the northwest corner of the state, near Oregon. Newsom did not say Thursday, April 30, 2020, whether it would intervene in Modoc County as it did in Southern California.
A sparsely populated rural county in the extreme northeast of California has not detected a single case of the coronavirus in its population.
Modoc is the only county in the state that appears to be COVID-19 free.
A handful of other counties have had minimal cases, but Modoc, home to approximately 9,000 residents, is the only county with none. Trinity County has had two cases and Sierra one.
In the past two weeks, 172 tests have been implemented in Modoc County, but all have been negative. The hospitals here are empty.
Photo: Scott Sonner, Associated Press
A northbound truck crosses the Modoc County line in Northern California along the eastern front of the High Sierra, about 160 miles north of Reno, Nev., On Friday, May 1, 2020, near Likely, California. For the first time in six weeks, there were diners in California restaurants. It happened in the small county of Modoc, very close to the Oregon border, which challenged Governor Gavin Newsom and reopened its economy, albeit with restrictions.
Without the coronavirus, the county on the Oregon border has been reluctant to follow the shelter-in-place order issued by Governor Gavin Newsom in mid-March.
Modoc was the first county to reopen its economy, defying the shelter order at the Newsom site. On May 1, all businesses, churches, and schools were able to open with modifications and the requirement that people stay six feet away. Residents age 65 and older and those with underlying health conditions were told to stay home.
Additionally, after Newsom issued the statewide mask order in June, Modoc County Sheriff William “Tex” Dowdy was one of the first in the state to say he would not enforce it.
“I fully support the fact that if someone wants to wear a face mask, please do so,” Dowdy told the LA Times. “If you feel that this is something of protection for you or your family. I feel like it’s a personal choice. “
In press reports, Newsom has threatened to withhold money from counties that do not follow the state order. “If you’re not going to stay home and you’re not going to wear masks in public, we have to enforce it, and we will,” Newsom said at a press conference in early July.
Despite this, there is no indication that Modoc County has been punished.
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Amy Graff is the SFGATE News Editor. Email him: [email protected].
