Fresno-area hospitalizations for COVID-19 reach new high. How quickly are they rising?
The number of people hospitalized for coronavirus in the central San Joaquin Valley climbed about 20% in the past seven days, and almost 60% over the past two weeks, driving concern over the region’s lack of progress in stemming the spread of COVID-19.
Across Fresno, Kings, Madera, Mariposa, Merced and Tulare counties, 226 patients with confirmed COVID-19 diagnoses were being treated in hospitals as of Wednesday, according to the most recent data available from the state Department of Public Health. That’s almost eight times as many as required hospitalization on April 1, in the early stages of the pandemic in the region.
The figures include 46 people whose bouts with the disease are serious enough to land them in hospital intensive-care units.
Another 56 people who are suspected COVID-19 victims – patients whose symptoms are consistent with the respiratory disease caused by the virus but for whom test results are pending – are also hospitalized across the six counties.
The number of COVID-19 patients hospitalized in Fresno County also reached another high-water mark on Wednesday, up almost 30% since a week ago. Hospitals were treating 93 confirmed coronavirus victims, including 22 intensive-care patients, in addition to 46 suspected COVID-19 cases.
Many people who contract the virus suffer only mild symptoms including fever, a cough or breathing difficulty, and some show few if any symptoms; they get past it simply by staying isolated at home and resting.
But the steady increase in the number of coronavirus patients sick enough to be admitted to hospitals has been a concern to Dr. Rais Vohra, Fresno County’s interim medical officer. The number of hospitalizations and the percentage of all test results that come back as positive for the infection are factors that Vohra said represent the most significant potential for triggering a rollback of businesses being allowed to reopen following a two-month shutdown aimed at stemming the spread of the virus.
“Once those numbers start to go up, that’s really when we get the first indicators that we’re moving into a more urgent phase with this crisis,” he said Tuesday, citing the need to ensure that hospitals have the capacity to not only care for COVID-19 patients, but the wide range of other illnesses, injuries and surgeries that make up the typical census of medical facilities.
A marked increase in the percentage of positive tests – which stood at 8.1% on Thursday, up slightly from Wednesday – and a sudden surge in hospitalizations are “really what I think would trigger having to pull back on some of our businesses and even possibly locking things back down,” Vohra said.
“We want to make sure our medical community has the capacity to really take care of patients at their highest level of care as needed,” Vohra added.
In Fresno County, about one out of every six intensive-care unit beds in hospitals were occupied by suspected or confirmed COVID-19 patients. That’s approximately the same ratio as the larger central San Joaquin Valley region, but it varies from one county to another. In Kings County, for example, nine of the county’s 22 ICU beds were being used Wednesday to treat coronavirus patients. In Madera County, by contrast, only two of the county’s 52 ICU beds held COVID-19 patients.
This story was originally published June 25, 2020 at 4:29 PM.
