Coronavirus update: Central San Joaquin Valley tops 10,000 cases; Tulare County adds 257

President Donald Trump on Monday again suggested that the United States was doing too much testing for COVID-19. This as new research says the number of cases in March may have been 80 times greater than original estimates.

That would add more than 8.7 million cases in the U.S. that health officials never knew existed.

Region tops 10,000 cases, reports more deaths and hospitalizations

In the central San Joaquin Valley, increased testing for COVID-19 continues to drive up the number of confirmed cases within the six counties. The region has now topped 10,000 cases and is reporting an average of 230 new cases each day.

There were nearly 500 new cases of coronavirus reported Monday in the Valley, including 240 in Fresno County, which has seen a massive surge in cases the past two weeks. The case count has risen by more than nearly 1,000 cases since June 13. The county has the most positive cases in the region at 3,485.

It looked to be a similar story on Tuesday, when Tulare County added 257 new cases, bringing its countywide total to 3,434.

While many people see few or no symptoms and recover fully, the rate of hospitalization among the infected and an acceleration in the number of deaths attributed to COVID-19 in the region is causing concern among health officials.

Fresno, Kings, Madera and Tulare counties reported a total of seven new coronavirus-related deaths on Monday. Tulare County added another three deaths on Tuesday. So far, 217 people have died of coronavirus-related illness in the central San Joaquin Valley since March 26.

Of those, 83 deaths have been reported since the start of June, making it the deadliest month of the pandemic. There were 81 reported fatalities 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. Its 116 deaths represents a rate of more than 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.

Airflow simulation studies how viruses can be spread in public transportation

A research team from Fresno State and UC Merced is working to understand how the coronavirus respiratory disease (COVID-19) is spread on modes of public transportation, by running airflow simulation on buses.

Using non-toxic candle smoke and non-harmful viruses the team will simulate the movement of air — and airborne contaminants — inside the bus.

“This study aims to understand air circulation patterns inside the cabins of buses, as well as test the impact of different approaches in mitigating potential virus circulation and infection,” said Aly Tawfik, associate professor of civil engineering in the Lyles College of Engineering at Fresno State and founding director of the Fresno State Transportation Institute.

“COVID-19 has changed the world and our lives dramatically. As shelter-in-place policies ease, life is expected to slowly return to some level of normalcy. However, the virus will not have gone away. People will start sharing tight spaces on limited capacity public transportation modes such as buses, metros, trains and planes. HVAC systems are likely to just redistribute the air and airborne virus throughout the entire cabin, risking the health of both drivers and passengers.”

HVAC data models will be compared with the field research to validate findings.

The team will later perform experiments under a variety of vehicle conditions, such as having the bus stationary and in motion, with the door and windows open and shut, and with HVAC in cooling and heating operations.

“Once complete, further experiments will be performed on a variety of public transit vehicles with different HVAC configurations,” Tawfik said. “Results of this study could be significantly valuable and directly lead to improved protection of passengers and drivers on public transportation modes against all forms of air-borne viruses both locally as well as across the entire globe.”

College graduates face bleak job market

Bethany Theuret is a recent Fresno State graduate working as a barista at Starbucks and trying to start a career in the middle of a pandemic.

She describes it as stressful. She’s applied for a dozen jobs and landed only one interview and no call-backs.

Theuret is just one of the many graduates in the nation pushed out into a job market that hasn’t looked this bleak since the Great Depression when unemployment peaked at 24.9%.

May’s unemployment for the state sat at 16.3%, the California Unemployment Development Department announced Friday, which is a small change from April’s 16.4%.

In Fresno County, the unemployment rate in May was 15.7%, down by more than one full percentage point from April’s rate of 16.9%.

Across the six-county Valley, 74,000 jobs have disappeared since the coronavirus began shutting down businesses. Although unemployment was slightly higher in the Valley in 2011 than it is now, the rate skyrocketed much faster than it did a decade ago.

This story was originally published June 23, 2020 at 8:37 AM.