Tests reveal more COVID-19 in Fresno region. Does it explain more hospitalizations, deaths?
Increased testing of residents across the Valley for COVID-19 continues to reveal more confirmed infections among the region’s population.
Many people who contract the infection deal with few, if any, symptoms from their bout with the novel coronavirus. Still, the number of people being hospitalized for treatment of more serious illness from the virus remains near an all-time high since the first local cases in the pandemic were reported in early March.
Fresno County’s Department of Public Health reported 240 new cases of COVID-19 infections on Monday afternoon, the first update provided by the department since Saturday. The report also included one additional death, pushing the county to a total of 67 lives lost to the virus. To date, Fresno County’s cases have reached 3,485, representing about 7.7% of the more than 42,000 people who have been tested for exposure to the coronavirus.
Earlier Monday, 131 additional cases and two more deaths were confirmed in Tulare County, pushing the case count there to 3,177, including 113 fatalities. The report was Tulare County’s first update since midday Friday.
Merced and Madera counties also provided new updates Monday. Merced County’s health department case count now stands at 661, including nine deaths after reporting 45 new cases Monday. In Madera County, health officials reported 20 new cases since Friday, bringing the total there to 334. Madera County also reported that a man in his 80s died Sunday, raising the death toll to five in the county.
Kings County reported 54 new confirmed cases on Monday, as well as three additional deaths. Those bring the county’s totals to 2,158 cases and 19 deaths. Of those, almost 1,130 cases and one death were associated with state prisons in the county. The county also reported that its total includes 106 cases in skilled nursing facilities.
Hospitalizations in the Valley – Fresno, Kings, Madera, Merced and Tulare counties – reached a high-water mark to date of 189 confirmed COVID-19 patients last Thursday, according to the California Department of Public Health. By Sunday, that had subsided to 179 patients – more than six times as many patients as were hospitalized on April 1, in the early stages of the pandemic.
Of those in hospitals on Sunday, 41 were seriously ill patients being treated in intensive-care units.
In Fresno County, the confirmed COVID-19 hospitalizations on Sunday numbered 73, equaling the record set four days earlier. Since the start of the pandemic, 299 county residents have been hospitalized.
The climbing case counts, rising hospitalizations and an acceleration in the number of deaths attributed to COVID-19 in the region, have presented a concern to local and state health officials as a growing number of businesses reopen from sweeping closure orders aimed at preventing the spread of the coronavirus.
Dr. Rais Vohra, Fresno County’s interim health officer, told reporters Friday that he was “perplexed” by the increases in cases last week, despite ongoing guidance issued by the county to businesses and residents encouraging physical distancing and wearing masks as measures to avoid unwittingly passing the virus to others.
Fresno County saw its case count rise by more than 700 between June 13 and Friday. The number of people hospitalized lurched from 115 on June 13 to 189 on Thursday before retreating slightly to 180 on Friday.
Vohra said last week that health officials expected more positive test results, not only because more businesses were reopening and more people resuming daily activities outside their homes, but also because more testing was likely to reveal more people who had been exposed to the virus without even knowing it.
In Fresno County, more than 42,000 residents have been tested for exposure to COVID-19. Across the Valley, county health departments reported testing volume to date at almost 83,500 – or just under 4% of the population in the six counties.
Hospitalizations and deaths, however, are tied to the severity of individual cases of the respiratory disease caused by the virus, rather than the increased volume of positive tests.
Across the Valley, the number of deaths attributed to COVID-19 as a cause of death reached 214 on Monday. Of those, 80 of those patients died since June 1. With eight days remaining in the month, June threatens to become the deadliest month of the pandemic in the region, eclipsing the 81 fatalities reported in May.
Tulare County continues to lead the region in the number of deaths, and also has the highest rate of deaths as a proportion of the county’s population. The 113 lives lost to date represents a rate of 23.5 deaths for every 100,000 residents in the county – one of the highest mortality rates in the state behind Los Angeles and Imperial counties.
Valleywide, the mortality rate is 10 deaths per 100,000 population, while California’s statewide rate is 13.8 per 100,000.
This story was originally published June 22, 2020 at 5:47 PM.
