BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KERO) — The M Street Navigation Center is expected to be closed for seven days following a COVID outbreak. That's according to the Community Action Partnership of Kern which says they're making the move to protect the health of both existing and potential clients as well as members of the staff.
"By and large, what we are seeing is that people will get through this, it's much like a flu. But because it is so capable of spreading, we are taking all the steps that we can to isolate people in hotel rooms. And then quarantine them, so that we don't have the entire population regularly exposed," explained Louis Gill with CAPK.
Gill says the navigation center is expected to re-open by next Monday.
Federal officials believe the U.S. averted a homeless crisis at the height of the pandemic.
The Department of Housing and Urban Development released a new report last month. It shows that sheltered homelessness decreased by 17 percent from 2019 to 2020.
The department credits pandemic relief for the drop. Four officials cited historic funding and resources like emergency rental assistance, expanded unemployment benefits, and a national ban on evictions.
Meanwhile, COVID-19 is sending more Americans to the hospital. That’s according to the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The CDC reported more than 12,600 new hospital admissions in the week ending in August 12. That was 22 percent higher than the previous week.
Some health experts say the increase should be a wake-up call for Americans to take the virus seriously before winter rolls in.
But many Americans still believe false claims about COVID-19 and vaccines.
A new poll by the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation found that about a third of adults believe COVID-19 shots cause thousands of sudden deaths in healthy people. Nearly a third also said they believed the medication Ivermectin was an effective treatment against the virus.
Health experts have said several times that there is no evidence to back up either claim.
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