Where did coronavirus rank for causes of death among Fresno-area residents in April?
A Fresno Bee analysis of deaths attributable to coronavirus shows the disease would rank No. 7 on a top 10 list of killers of residents of the Fresno region.
Since the first cases of COVID-19 were confirmed March 6 in the central San Joaquin Valley, 56 people have died from complications associated with the virus.
Fifty-one of those deaths occurred in April 2020, according to a review of coronavirus deaths as reported by health departments in Fresno, Kings, Madera, Mariposa, Merced and Tulare counties.
That figure would rank COVID-19 on the list just behind Alzheimer’s disease and just ahead of diabetes, when compared to the April averages of the 10 most common causes of death reported in 2016, 2017 and 2018 in this region by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and its National Center for Health Statistics.
The April averages for the Valley over that three-year period include:
1. Heart disease – 261 deaths.
2. Cancer – 227 deaths.
3. Vehicle accidents – 76 deaths.
4. Stroke – 67 deaths.
5. Chronic lower respiratory diseases – 64 deaths.
6. Alzheimer disease – 55 deaths.
7. Diabetes – 39 deaths.
8. Hypertension – 34 deaths.
9. Influenza / pneumonia – 27 deaths.
10. Chronic liver disease / Cirrhosis – 26 deaths.
Of 41 deaths attributed to COVID 19 by health officials in Tulare County, 37 occurred in April.
The combination of a substantial number of coronavirus fatalities and the largely rural county’s small population in comparison to other parts of the state have resulted in Tulare County having one of the highest rates of COVID-19 deaths in proportion to its population among California’s 58 counties.
Tulare County’s fatalities amount to about 8.5 deaths for every 100,000 residents as of Wednesday morning. Not only is that well above the statewide rate of about six deaths per 100,000, it’s third behind only Los Angeles County, where 1,313 coronavirus deaths represent a rate of almost 13 deaths per 100,000 residents, and Yolo County, where the rate is about nine deaths per 100,000.
Comparing deaths statewide and nationally
Statewide, county health departments across California have reported almost 2,400 deaths attributed to COVID-19 since the brunt of the global pandemic reached the state earlier this year.
While that’s far fewer fatalities than have been reported in other states – including more than 25,000 in New York, nearly 8,600 in New Jersey, and about 4,200 in Massachusetts – it still represents a significant human price paid by the state residents.
The state Department of Health Services reports that 1,902 of the coronavirus deaths in California occurred in April. That would rank COVID-19 as the third-leading cause of death compared to the April averages from 2016, 2017 and 2018, behind only heart disease and cancer, and ahead of strokes, Alzheimer disease, chronic respiratory diseases, accidents, diabetes, influenza/pneumonia, liver disease, suicide or homicide.
A predictive model produced by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington indicates that May 4 was the day in which California experienced the highest number of deaths – 84 – in one day since the pandemic hit.
The IHME model – which bases its presumptions in part on current statewide levels of restrictions on businesses, public gatherings and other social-distancing means of reducing the spread of the coronavirus – forecasts that the number of deaths per day from COVID-19 will continue to decline in California through early August.
While the daily volume of deaths in California is expected to diminish, the IHME model nonetheless forecasts that the total number of deaths from coronavirus disease is expected to be somewhere in the neighborhood of 4,700 by early August. Uncertainty in the model, however, means that the actual number could fall somewhere between 3,100 and 9,100 deaths by that time.
