Coronavirus update: Fresno County approaching 35,000 cases ahead of death toll news
Fresno County added 232 new COVID-19 cases on Thursday, the California Department of Public Health reported, while deaths remained at 463. Officials will provide an update on the number of deaths Friday.
The county is just three cases away from reaching a total of 35,000. This past week, the county saw nearly 1,000 cases reported in just four days, as Wednesday was the third consecutive day with more than 200 new cases reported, following 296 new COVID-19 cases reported Tuesday and more than 300 Monday.
Over the past seven days, the county has averaged about 287 new cases per day, a 164.5% increase from two weeks ago.
Fresno County as of Thursday had 189 people hospitalized, with 28 of those in the ICU. Since Wednesday, the 14-day average number of hospitalizations in the county is 129.7, while across the six counties that make up the central San Joaquin Valley, those numbers totaled 222.4.
This week, Fresno County was among several California counties to get demoted back to the most restrictive tier under California’s Blueprint for a Safer Economy following a massive uptick in new cases. The county had been in the state’s red Tier 2 before returning to the purple Tier 1 on Monday.
As a result, state officials on Thursday issued a curfew for counties in the purple-tier that includes Fresno, Tulare, Madera, Kings, and Merced counties.
The curfew will begin Saturday evening from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m.
Despite Gov. Gavin Newsom’s mandate, local city and law enforcement officials said they would not be enforcing it. Mayor Lee Brand, in a statement on Thursday, said the city is asking residents to “voluntarily comply” with the state’s stay-at-home mandate and that the police department will concentrate on its “regular responsibilities to serve and protect the people of Fresno.”
Similarly, Sheriff Margaret Mims said her deputies would not be out “enforcing the limited closure order.”
Valleywide, 481 new cases were reported Thursday, bringing the total to 80,859.
California coronavirus cases update
California reached a new single-day record on Thursday, reporting a total of 13,422 new COVID-19 cases, totaling 1,079,653 infections since the pandemic began in March. There were an additional 93 deaths statewide since Thursday.
The rate of people testing positive for the virus has remained at 5.2% this past week. California is now averaging 10,529 daily cases across the state, a 117.2% increase from 14 days ago. The state is averaging about 16.5 new positive cases per 100,000 residents a day.
On Thursday, California reported a total of 18,560 deaths and is averaging about 60 deaths per day over the past week.
Hospitalizations are also on the rise, with the state reporting 4,523 people hospitalized as of Friday, up by 67% from 14 days ago. Nearly 3,000 of them are in the ICU, according to state data.
California’s curfew, running from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m., applies to all residents except essential workers in 41 counties.
U.S. on the edge of reaching 200,000 COVID-19 cases a day
The case count nationwide is rapidly approaching 12 million, as the U.S. averages about 166,272 cases per day.
Public health experts say the country is teetering on the edge of soon reaching at least 200,000 cases per day, a troubling statistic they say is causing a strain on the nation’s hospitals, exhausting the health care sector’s workers, and expanding lockdowns.
Even if the weekly average stayed at about 166,000 daily cases for the remainder of the year, that would mean nearly seven million more people would get sick, The New York Times reports. That roughly totals to about 2% of the U.S. population contracting the virus.
About 11.8 million total cases have been reported, while the number of deaths totals 252,273, according to an analysis by The New York Times. A total of 1,968 new COVID-19 deaths and 187,428 new cases were reported in the U.S. on Friday. The number of new cases on Friday had increased 73% from the tally two weeks ago. The country continues to average about 1,200 deaths per day.
A total of 80,698 patients are hospitalized nationwide Friday, up 1,288 from the day before. That’s a 50% increase from two weeks ago, according to data from the COVID Tracking Project.
The pharmaceutical company Pfizer, responsible for releasing the first set of promising results from its coronavirus clinical trial, announced Friday plans to apply for an emergency-use authorization of its vaccine.
With national case numbers surging to new highs, the company on Friday said it would accelerate a routine process that, if approved by the Food and Drug Administration, could allow some Americans to get vaccinated by mid-December.
The plan comes on the heels of the company’s Wednesday announcement that its vaccine was 95% effective and safe for mass distribution.
An emergency authorization of its vaccine would allow a limited number of Americans to get vaccinated before the federal agency has conducted its months-long approval process. Essential workers, high-risk groups, nursing home residents, and health care workers are among the select few that would be allowed to get vaccinated early. Still, FDA officials said its new emergency authorization guidelines would be exceptionally high, The New York Times reports.
This story was originally published November 20, 2020 at 8:29 AM.