Coronavirus
Coronavirus updates: Foster Farms plant ordered closed; Fresno County hits 24K cases
Fresno County now counts more than 24,000 positive cases of the corononavirus.
That includes 139 new cases reported Thursday by the California Department of Public Health. That is the lowest single-day increase this week.
There were 327 new cases added across the central San Joaquin of Fresno, Kings, Madera, Mariposa, Merced and Tulare counties on Thursday. That also represents the lowest single-day increase this week.
Tulare County reported 109 new cases Friday morning.
On average, the region has been adding 725 new cases each day for the past two weeks. That’s down from an average of more than 900 at the start of the week.
The total number of cases in the six counties is now just over 55,000.
Across the state, the were 4,430 new cases reported Thursday and a total to 683,529 total infections.
Eleven more Valley people have died of the coronavirus, according to health officials across the six counties. Eight deaths were reported in Tulare County on Thursday and Friday; two deaths in Merced and one in Madera were reported on Thursday. Fresno County, which reported 13 deaths Tuesday, will update its death count Friday afternoon.
In all, the coronavirus has been cited for 713 deaths across the region.
COVID-19 outbreak closes Foster Farms plant
The Merced County Health Department on Wednesday ordered the Foster Farms Livingston Facility to shut down after it had the largest and most severe COVID-19 outbreak in county.
County officials issued a 48-hour stay to the shutdown order to “help facilitate logistics associated with any necessary closure.”
At least 358 employees have tested positive and eight employees have died due to the coronavirus, according to a letter obtained from the Merced County Health Department. The true spread, however, remains unknown, according to the statement.
The COVID-19 fatality rate at Foster Farms is 2.2%, nearly twice the rate of the rest of the county, according to a letter from the Merced County Health Department. The outbreak at the Livingston Facility accounts for 18% of COVID-19 deaths in the county under age 65, 7% of total county deaths and 4 out of 10 coronavirus deaths in Livingston, the health department said.
It wasn’t immediately clear how Foster Farms would respond to the shutdown order.
Military medical team honored
A team of medical workers from Travis Air Force Base was honored on Thursday for helping at Kaweah Delta Medical Center in Visalia. The team was one of eight sent to California hospitals last month to help with coronavirus surges across the state.
The military personnel will be re-deploying back to their base in Solano County after six weeks of care.
Wearing mask could be worth $100
Wear a mask and you could get a $100 gift card, thanks to a new campaign from the Central Valley Community Foundation.
The “Mask Up Central Valley” campaign was launched this week in cooperation with county health offices in Fresno, Tulare, Madera, Merced, Mariposa and Kings counties with the goal of encouraging and incentivizing the wearing of masks to help slow the spread of the coronavirus.
The counties are currently on the state’s coronavirus watch list.
“The easiest way to help stop the spread of COVID-19 and get things back to normal is to wear a mask,” said Ashley Swearengin, President, and CEO of CVCF. This campaign is meant to say ‘thank you’ to those who are doing their best to protect, not only themselves but their loved ones and neighbors as well.”
Local leaders throughout the region will be rewarding 400 unsuspecting mask-wearers with $100 Visa gift cards.
“Wearing a mask anytime you leave the house is the best way to protect yourself and others and help make sure we can all get back to normal,” said Dr. Rais Vohra, Interim Health Officer for the County of Fresno Department of Public Health.
The campaign is paid for by CVCF’s COVID-19 Emergency Response Fund and also includes multi-media education campaign in four languages. For more information can eb found online at www.MaskUpCV.org.
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