Fresno tops 500 COVID-19 cases, Tulare adds 46 patients as virus continues its spread in Valley
A spate of new cases of COVID-19 has put Fresno County at more than 500 confirmed infections since the coronavirus pandemic reached the central San Joaquin Valley less than two months ago.
Tuesday afternoon’s update from the Fresno County Department of Public Health reported 23 new patients since Monday. Those cases bring the total confirmed cases in the county to 521. Seven deaths of patients in the county have been blamed on the respiratory illness caused by the novel coronavirus.
Of Fresno County’s patients, 189 are considered by health officials to have recovered from the infection – either showing no signs of symptoms after being quarantined, or by having a test come back negative for the virus.
Earlier Tuesday, neighboring Tulare County reported 46 new confirmed cases of COVID-19, as well as three additional deaths. Since March 11, when health officials in Tulare County acknowledged their first cases, 578 people have tested positive for the disease, and 35 have died.
To the north, Merced County’s morning update included six new cases since Monday. Merced now counts 116 people who have had the virus, including three deaths.
Mariposa County reported its first case of coronavirus on Tuesday. Up to that time, it had been the only county in Central California without any confirmed COVID-19 cases, and one of only five counties (all largely rural) statewide with no patients infected.
In Kings County, health officials announced Tuesday evening that eight new cases were discovered through testing. So far, only one person has succumbed to the coronavirus disease in the county.
The 85 new cases in the region on Tuesday is the largest number of new cases since the outbreak hit, ahead of the 80 cases reported Monday. Across Fresno, Kings, Madera, Mariposa, Merced and Tulare counties, the central San Joaquin Valley reached 1,300 cases, and 48 deaths are attributed to the virus.
In Tulare County, two of the three new fatalities reported Tuesday were patients in nursing homes – striking a segment of the population that health officials have said is particularly vulnerable to the coronavirus.
Hospitalizations
While a growing number of people have recovered from their bout with COVID-19 – if they indeed showed any symptoms at all – the number of confirmed and suspected coronavirus patients hospitalized for treatment of the disease across the Valley has not diminished.
As of Monday, 78 patients confirmed to be infected with coronavirus were in hospitals across the six-county region, according to the state Department of Public Health. Hospitals were also treating another 58 “suspected” COVID-19 patients – people whose symptoms are consistent with the disease but for whom confirming test results were pending.
Those hospitalized include 26 confirmed patients being treated in intensive-care units – 17 in Fresno County – and three “suspected” patients.
Fresno County Administrative Officer Jean Rousseau said Tuesday that he believes rigorous stay-at-home and social-distancing efforts have resulted in far less strain on hospital resources than was initially feared.
“Our hospitals, quite frankly, are in pretty good shape in terms of capacity,” he said, adding that it’s his understanding that there are about 150 intensive-care beds across hospitals in the county. “The whole idea of our initial efforts was to retain or maintain hospital capacity, and that is working in Fresno County.”
“I don’t think the models (of potential coronavirus impacts nationwide) took into account the impact of social distancing and the elimination or suspension of elective surgeries,” he added.
Easing up on ‘the dimmer’
The increase in new daily cases in Fresno County and across the Valley over the past two days came even as local leaders agitate for moves to start reopening businesses that have been shuttered as “non-essential” since stay-at-home orders were issued more than a month ago.
On Tuesday, Fresno Mayor Lee Brand announced that pet grooming shops in the city are being reclassified locally as essential, allowing them to reopen after determining that nothing in California Gov. Gavin Newsom prohibiting such a move.
Rousseau added that in his daily briefing Tuesday, Newsom offered hopeful indicators “for relaxing the stay at home order ... in a few weeks.”
“He didn’t say one (week), he didn’t say three, but a few weeks, not months,” Rousseau added.
Rousseau repeated a phrase that’s become common over the past week by state and local health officials that lifting some of the current restrictions won’t be like flipping a light switch to restart commerce, “but a dimmer switch.”
“Although we’d like to have local control of the dimmer, it looks like it’s going to be a statewide process,” he said. “Whatever the governor can do to help us jump-start our economy, I fully support him, without going backward regarding our efforts to fight the COVID crisis.”
That includes making plans to gradually have county employees returning to work in their offices after more than a month of teleworking remotely. Of the county government’s workforce of between 7,500 and 8,000 employees, about one-third have been working remotely, Rousseau said.
“We’ve learned quite a bit. … It’s taught us that we can do things differently,” he said. “I think we’re going to come out of this situation with a newfound respect for the use of teleworking when it’s done properly.”
When employees do come back, consideration will be given to how to achieve continued social distancing within offices, alternative schedules, and having workers wear masks when they’re unable to maintain six feet of distance from other employees, Rousseau said.
This story was originally published April 28, 2020 at 6:20 PM.
