Coronavirus updates: Fresno County hospitalizations drop; Foster Farms closure looms
Fresno County added 209 coronavirus cases through Saturday night, bringing the county to a cumulative total of 24,821 people who, at some time since March, have contracted the virus.
The number of patients currently hospitalized declined by five to a total of 196, the lowest since early July, according to figures posted by the state of California. The number of coronavirus-confirmed patients in intensive care did rise by five to 48.
Latest on Foster Farms plant in Livingston
The Merced County Department of Public Health has issued a revised Health Officer Order on the ongoing outbreak of COVID-19 cases at the Foster Farms Livingston Plant Building.
The department is now requiring closure of the plant for six days starting Tuesday to allow for deep cleaning and employee coronavirus testing. Before an employee can return to work, they will need to test negative twice within a seven-day period.
If proper cleaning and testing cannot be completed, the order could be extended past Sept. 7.
“This Health Order is a significant step toward our ultimate goal of stemming the spread of COVID-19 in our community and saving lives,” Dr. Salvador Sandoval, Merced County’s public health officer said, in a release from the department of public health. “We take these types of situations very seriously. We’re grateful that Foster Farms was willing to come to the table and reach an agreement that will protect its employees while providing a blueprint for the company to continue its critical food production operations.”
The areas of the Foster Farms Livingston complex that are not experiencing a COVID-19 outbreak will be allowed to remain open, following a previous order, and will require frequent testing to be provided by Foster Farms as well as standard health and safety protocols including screening, social distancing and the use of personal protective equipment.
The Foster Farms Livingston Plant Building is now up to 392 cases of coronavirus, and eight employees have died due to COVID-19. Since it was declared an outbreak location by the department of health on June 29, the plant is the most severe and longest-lasting outbreak in Merced County.
From around the state, nation and world
▪ India registered 78,761 new coronavirus cases on Sunday, the biggest single-day spike in the world since the pandemic began, just as the government began easing restrictions to help the battered economy.
▪ Momentum is growing to reopen schools amid the coronavirus pandemic in Sacramento and around the state, but in a limited way that Gov. Gavin Newsom and health officials say will be safe and controllable.
Normally Teresa Stanfield spends her days in prisons talking with inmates about how she changed the course of her troubled life, and how they can do the same. But the coronavirus has locked her on the outside.
The answer was Floodlight, developed in March as a collection of spiritual and inspirational programming delivered online and via closed-circuit television to prisons across the country, reaching a total of over 400,000 inmates — 1,000 times more than Stanfield’s largest in-person presentations.
This story was originally published August 30, 2020 at 9:09 AM.