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ALTURAS — In the far northeastern reaches of California, where Oregon and Nevada meet, lies Modoc County, a place so remote and starkly beautiful that it has long billed itself “the last best place.”
Now, as coronavirus cases are exploding from neighboring Lassen County all the way to the southern tip of San Diego, Modoc County has become the last best place to avoid the deadly virus.
This high desert county of alfalfa fields, wildlife refuges and 9,000 people has not recorded a single case of COVID-19. Not even one. Ever.
It’s the only county in California that appears to be coronavirus free — one of only five in seven Western states that can still make that claim, at the moment.
“We’re all shocked we don’t have it yet,” said Modoc County spokeswoman Heather Hadwig. “We know it’s coming. We thought it was coming for weeks. Mostly, though, we’re ready and very, very prepared.”
The county established its emergency operations centers early and sheltered in place like everyone else. It canceled the 100th anniversary of the county fair set for later this summer. But county officials were also some of the first to defy Gov. Gavin Newsom’s lockdown orders and reopened, without permission, in early May — a renegade act that sparked a threatening letter from the state. Sheriff Tex Dowdy said he has no intention of enforcing state mask-wearing rules.
Ted’s Barber Shop, the Brass Rail restaurant, the Country Hearth Bakery and other beauty shops and restaurants in the larger towns of Alturas and Cedarville have been up and running for two-and-a-half months, but still, Modoc County’s place on statewide coronavirus dashboards remains a perfectly flat line. No hospitalizations. No deaths. No positive test results. Even the influx of “coronavirus refugees” who fled their urban confines in L.A. and San Francisco to camp along the Pit River and sling back beers at the Round Up Saloon haven’t carried COVID with them.
So, what’s the secret?
Locals have their unscientific theories:
“We’re stubborn,” said Gerry Gates, sitting outside his Gates Gallery and Trading Post on Main Street in Alturas.
“Clean livin’,” said Tony Frutuozo, 66, the county’s cattle brand inspector, drinking coffee at the Country Hearth in Cedarville.
“We got a fence there to keep it out,” joked retired rancher Bill Heryford, 88.
Folks in this county — outnumbered by cattle four to one — say they have natural advantages against the virus. Social distancing is a way of life here — driveways are often longer than Cedarville’s Main Street — and with all the dirty work on the ranch, people tend to clean up several times a day.
“When you’re shoulder-deep in a cow, you get good at washing your hands,” said Taryn Burns, 20, who has had her share of pulling calves on the family’s ranch outside the county seat of Alturas.
Along with all those, uh, natural benefits, Modoc County is removed from many of the factors that have contributed to the coronavirus escalation in the Bay Area and elsewhere.
Unlike neighboring Lassen County, where cases spiked into the low 200s when infected inmates from San Quentin transferred to the state prison in Susanville, Modoc County has only a 43-bed county jail, where temperatures are checked with every new inmate.
Unlike communities across the state that have suffered severe COVID outbreaks at nursing homes, Modoc County has just two skilled nursing facilities — and they remain on lockdown with no visitors allowed.
Unlike the Bay Area, there are fewer residents in each household, so not many live in cramped quarters. Most people here work for the government managing federal lands that make up a large portion of the county. The county screens and quarantines migrant farmworkers and seasonal firefighters when they first arrive.
There is something else, too. When the lockdown orders were put in place, there really wasn’t much to lock down. With years of drought hurting farmers and online shopping killing retail, towns in Modoc County have been struggling for years. In the county seat of Alturas, home to 2,600 people, half the businesses on Main Street — about 30 — were out of business before the pandemic.
The Belligerent Duck sporting goods store is long gone and the Classie Lassie boutique will soon be shuttered. Women in town have arranged silk floral displays to brighten up some of the empty storefronts. Cars and people are so sparse that deer regularly saunter across Main Street. Alturas has the ignoble distinction of being listed as a “semi-ghost” town by ghosttowns.com.
Still, two other California counties — Alpine and Sierra — are less populous than Modoc and have landed on the coronavirus charts, with one case apiece. On the opposite end of the state, Imperial County, which neighbors Arizona and Mexico, has become the hardest-hit in California.
Some Modoc locals are convinced the virus already passed through here in December, when many were sick with flu-like symptoms. Others suspect that the virus is here, but unreported.
“I’ve gone to the vet more than the hospital,” said Burns, the cowgirl who washes her hands a lot. “In general, if I am not in the act of dying, I’m not going to the hospital.”
Sheriff Dowdy, who runs the emergency operations center, says there’s no evidence of either scenario. The county is offering free COVID testing twice a week and had completed more than 700 tests as of last week without a single positive. It also has distributed plenty of masks and gloves, Dowdy insists. And even though locals travel nearly three hours to go to Costco and Target in Redding or Reno, most folks are trying to stay put to avoid bringing the virus home.
“Nobody in this county is taking this lightly,” the sheriff said. “But we still have to live every day.”
So when barber Ted Lewis, Gates from the trading post and other business owners in Alturas threatened to open on May 1 with or without authorization, Dowdy understood their frustration. He coaches the high school softball team and knows just about everyone in town.
“I’m getting paid to come to work every day,” Dowdy said. “For me to tell them that they can’t and further burden them with writing them a citation or fining them when they’re already hurting? It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense for any community.”
The sheriff drafted a phased-in reopening plan and sent it to the state.
“We never got a response,” Dowdy said. So the town opened anyway.
A week later, the county received a letter from the governor’s office accusing officials of ignoring state orders and threatening to withhold disaster funds should their “careless and hasty actions” cause an outbreak.
An independent streak runs through mostly Republican Modoc County, for sure. Locals pride themselves on their fortitude and friendliness.
“Even those who don’t believe in the pandemic have been very respectful of people who do,” said Jessica Burns, Taryn’s mother.
In these remote reaches, BLM still stands for Bureau of Land Management. But that doesn’t mean the Black Lives Matter movement hasn’t shown up.
When an internet hoax circulated in early June that Antifa agitators were heading to rural white counties, the Plumas Bank boarded its windows and business owners lined Main Street with baseball bats.When a few local teenagers stood in front of the Niles Hotel waving homemade, hard-to-read signs, Gates from the trading post put down his bat, crossed the street and lent them a thick black Sharpie.
Sitting in front of his shop on a warm summer day, Gates said he believes the COVID-19 crisis is “horribly over-hyped and politicized.”
“But what do I know?” he said. “I sit in a county of less than 9,000 people.”
Still, every time a stranger walks in, just to be sure, he wipes down the front doorknob.
