Coronavirus updates, Oct. 26: Is purple tier on Fresno County’s horizon?
Fresno County reported 119 new COVID-19 cases, bringing the total to 30,752 as of Saturday, according to county officials. The toll of the coronavirus pandemic has resulted in a total of 436 deaths. The county reports deaths twice a week on Tuesdays and Fridays.
Fresno County reported on Saturday that 100 people remain hospitalized, while a total of 20,110 have recovered.
Fresno County could soon move into the state’s most restrictive phase of California’s reopening plan, downgrading into the purple Tier 2, according to California’s Blueprint for a Safer Economy. Currently, the county sits in the red tier 3, which means additional businesses such as restaurants and gyms can operate with increased capacity. But officials on Friday said the county was on the edge of moving back into the more restrictive phase after reporting more than 140 new cases.
Under Tier 2, restaurants can offer indoor dining at up to 25% capacity, churches can hold indoor worship services at up to 25% capacity, and gyms can open indoors at up to 10% capacity. If the county slips back into the most restrictive phase, restaurants would have to go back to take-out only and some businesses would have to suspend indoor operations. The county will provide a tier status update on Tuesday.
In order to stay in the current phase, Fresno county must maintain an adjusted average daily rate of seven new coronavirus cases for every 100,000 residents and maintain a positivity rate of daily new infections is maintained at 8% or less. As of Friday, Fresno County’s new-case rate was above the required threshold, at 7.3 per 100,000 residents. The county’s testing positivity rate was 5.2%.
Valleywide, Merced and Kings counties currently stand in the red Tier 2, while Madera and Tulare counties remains in the purple Tier 1. Mariposa county has remained in the least restrictive yellow Tier 4.
COVID-19 statewide, across the country
Statewide, state officials have reported a total of 898,029 coronavirus infections and 17,345 deaths since the pandemic began. California reported 5,219 new cases and 34 new deaths as of Sunday, according to the California Department of Public Health.
The statewide daily case rate calculated in two-week rolling averages have hovered around 3,675, according to state health officials, while the two week rolling average of new deaths stayed at 56 as of Sunday.
Across the nation, there have been 59,691 new cases and 339 new deaths, bringing the total to more than 8.7 million cases and more than 225,000 deaths as of Sunday, according to the New York Times.
In the past month, the New York Times reports that more than 41,000 COVID-19 patients have been hospitalized across the nation, a 40% increase that has forced hospitals to start limiting services. Utah, Missouri, Tennesse and Texas are among the states that have reported the largest increases. Cases per capita are highest in North Dakota, Idaho, Iowa, South Dakota, Wyoming and Alaska, as well as other state which include Wisconsin, Montana, Illinois and Nebraska.
Nine days before election day, President Donald Trump on Sunday claimed in an interview on 60 minutes the United States is doing a “very, very good job” and was “rounding the corner” on curbing the pandemic, despite a nationwide surge of new cases. He claimed the uptick in cases was attributed to the increase in testing, an assertion discredited by public health experts.
In another 60 minutes interview, presidential contender and former Vice President Joe Biden said the largest domestic issue facing the nation was “Covid.” He criticized the president’s response to the pandemic.