MENDOCINO COUNTY, Calif. – The Mendocino County health officer said that recent end-of-year school gatherings and in-person church services in the Ukiah area have contributed to new confirmed COVID-19 cases.

On Wednesday evening Dr. Noemi Doohan confirmed six new COVID-19 cases in the Ukiah Valley region. Four of those cases are teenagers.

Doohan said the new cases reported Wednesday bring Mendocino County’s case count to 53; those include 19 who are isolated, one hospitalized in the ICU and 33 recovered.

She said eight of the county’s recently confirmed cases have been traced back to two end-of-school-year or graduation-related gatherings in Ukiah.

In addition, four cases over the past week have been linked to in-person church services in the Ukiah area, Doohan said.

In response to this spike in positive cases, Doohan said Mendocino County Public Health will be doing outbreak testing. That testing began on Wednesday and is continuing on Thursday at the Public Health Building at 1120 South Dora St. in Ukiah.

Doohan said Mendocino County is experiencing a spike in cases for individuals under the age of 35, which now make up 43 percent of the county’s cases.

She said a case that was recently in the ICU was in the 19 to 35 age group.

The end of the school year, graduation and the start of summer is often a time to celebrate and hold large gatherings. However, Doohan said all gatherings including those in homes, parks and community spaces are not allowed and are high-risk for the spread of COVID-19.

Group activities are limited to members of the same household or a social bubble which means a stable group of 12 individuals who form either a household support unit, a childcare unit, or a children’s extracurricular activity unit.