With 700-plus additional coronavirus cases, Fresno County rapidly nears 20,000 mark
Fresno County took a huge leap toward topping 20,000 coronavirus cases in the now 5-month-old pandemic, as the Department of Public Health on Saturday reported 743 additional positive results.
The new figures, first posted on the state of California website, raised the total to 19,990 since the first case was confirmed in early March. The county topped 10,000 cases less than a month ago, just as cases began to spike.
Fresno County’s 14-day rolling average of new cases is 344.
The latest numbers, representing cases through Friday night, come with a caveat as the state continues to catch up on results of older tests while clearing a backlog created by a data glitch.
Gov. Gavin Newsom said that of the 7,900 lab-confirmed cases added statewide Friday, about 4,400 were from the backlog and 3,505 were truly “new,” which would be the lowest single-day increase since mid-June.
No additional Fresno County fatalities were reported, leaving the death toll at 203. California has now topped 11,000 deaths.
The number of patients hospitalized in the county continued a downward trend, falling by one to 249. There are 8,425 people in Fresno County considered to have recovered from COVID-19, the illness caused by the infectious disease, although the number likely is higher as contract tracing and other follow-up on past cases can lag.
Kings County, in a Saturday night update, reported two deaths for a total of 37 and a 30-case increase to 3,237 in its general population.
There were another 69 additional cases for a total of 2,006 within state prison facilities in Avenal and Corcoran, and an unchanged 166 in skilled nursing facilities.
Seventy-one additional recoveries among those three Kings County cohorts increased the total number of people classified as recovered to 2,982.
There have been 66 deaths total in Kings County, including 23 in the nursing homes and six in the prisons.
Total deaths have risen each month in the six-county central San Joaquin Valley region, with August on pace to establish a new high. There have been 160 lives lost to complications of COVID-19 this month, compared to 206 for July.
The overall death toll since March is 612.
No other central Valley county had reported updated results. Tulare County, which does not update its case numbers on weekends and holidays, has reported the highest death toll in the region at 205.
The Sacramento Bee contributed to this report.
This story was originally published August 15, 2020 at 4:36 PM.
