COVID-19 patients increase at Fresno County hospitals; testing for virus short of goals

Fresno County’s hospital patient loads are beginning to rebound, which could mean trouble as the county sees increasing numbers of COVID-19 cases.

Dr. Rais Vohra, Fresno County’s interim health officer, told reporters Tuesday that local hospitals are reporting that their intensive-care units are running at a normal census for this time of the year. That means somewhere between 80% and 100% capacity, and sometimes higher, potentially diminishing their ability to respond to a crisis.

“Not all of those ICU beds are COVID patients, but it does impact our response because the less space there is for absorbing an uptick in the number of patients, the more we have to consider going into our crisis and our surge protocols,” said Vohra.

So far, none of Fresno County’s hospitals have reported using their emergency protocols, but an increase in coronavirus patients requiring hospital treatment could change that.

Wade Nogy, senior vice president and area manager at the Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Fresno, said the hospital has adequate ICU capacity and has “plans in place to increase treatment space, staff and supplies in the event of a potential surge.”

Hospitals across the county had 61 confirmed COVID-19 patients and 25 suspected patients as of Monday, including 22 confirmed coronavirus patients in intensive-care units. COVID-19 patients do not make up the majority of ICU patients, Vohra said; other critically ill patients are suffering from pneumonia, strokes, heart attacks and “just a whole gamut of medical illnesses.”

“Our ICU census, currently, is in the 100 to 150 range, so we do have room to expand provided that there are no other ICU beds being taken up by ICU patients,” said Vohra. “However, that’s a very rosy look at what is going on in our county because we know there are a lot of other ICU illnesses that we are also treating on any given day.”

Testing falls short

In addition to concerns over hospital capacity, Fresno County continues to fall short of the state’s recommended testing standard of 150 tests per day per 100,000 residents. With a population of just over 1 million, that means Fresno County is expected to be testing 1,500 people each day.

State health officials estimate that testing is running at about 650 per day in Fresno County, but Vohra said he believes it’s more like 1,000 per day. “We’ve had a lot of dialogue with the state about who has the more accurate numbers,” he said, “but we feel like ours here locally are more accurate, so I think we are closer to 1,500 than just 650.”

Still, the testing is below the standard. One of the reasons, Vohra said, is a misconception in the public that only those that are symptomatic for COVID should be getting tested.

“The current recommendation is that everyone should get tested, whether they are symptomatic or not,” said Vohra. “You are really doing everyone a service if you end up undergoing the test.”

Another reason for the county’s limited testing is a limited number of testing supplies and other necessary assets required for the testing process. The county is in the process of assessing new testing practices and procedures in order to make testing more cost- and resource-effective.

Vohra added that Fresno County is asking the state to set up a third “high-throughput” testing center in the county, in addition to venues at Fresno City College and in Sanger. Each of those sites is capable of collecting about 130 swab samples per day for testing.