Coronavirus update: Fresno protesters defy new curfew as case count mounts
Fresno County had 338 additional COVID-19 cases according to data reported Sunday by the California Department of Public Health, bringing the county’s total to 35,973 since the pandemic began.
A total of 471 deaths have been recorded as of Sunday. Local officials will release an update on the number of deaths Tuesday.
2,004 cases were added in Fresno County in the past week, averaging to about 286 new cases per day.
The number of hospitalized patients has also been on the rise for the past two weeks. Fresno County hospitals had 171 confirmed COVID-19 patients, including 23 seriously ill patients in ICUs, as of Friday. Another 29 suspected coronavirus patients were also in hospitals on Friday, according to data from the state.
Though the case count across the county is surging, protests against new reopening restrictions erupted in Fresno over the weekend, as demonstrators defied the curfew Saturday on the first night of California’s new curfew.
California’s curfew, running from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m., applies to all residents except essential workers in 41 counties, including Fresno County, that have been demoted into the state’s most-restrictive purple Tier 1 of its reopening plan. Protesters on Saturday said they believed there was no reason to implement the new order, citing several reasons that included a disbelief in the severity of the pandemic as well as anger that more shutdowns imposed by the government will only further weaken the economy.
Law enforcement officials said last week that they have no plans to enforce the curfew, but agents from the state Alcohol Beverage Control agency say they will act against anyone serving alcohol after 10 p.m. The curfew remains in effect until at least Dec. 21 and could be extended if the virus continues to spread at high rates..
California cases triple over past month as cases surge
In the past month, the number of new coronavirus cases across California had more than tripled, showing a surge in new cases that Gov. Gavin Newsom said led to the curfew order. As of Sunday, the state had recorded 1,110,745 total cases, up 5,842 from the day before. A total of 18,725 deaths in the state have been reported since the pandemic began as the tally raised by 17 Sunday.
The virus is rapidly spreading, currently infecting more residents at a faster rate than previously seen at any other point during the pandemic. The state is experiencing a 104.9% increase of daily new cases over the past two weeks, resulting in at least 11,451 cases per day, while its seven-day positivity rate sat at 6%, and the 14-day positivity rate was 5.5%. There have been 22,237,309 tests conducted in California, representing an increase of 265,477 over the prior 24-hour reporting period.
National case count exceeds 12 million
The case count nationwide has now surpassed 12 million, with 12,313,700 as the U.S. averages about 171,462 cases per day as of Sunday, according to an analysis by The New York Times.
With more than 1 million new cases being reported in a single week, federal officials are urging the public to reconsider their Thanksgiving plans and not travel. In the past week, the daily new case rate has increased by 54% from the average two weeks earlier. The number of deaths totals 256,597, up 844 deaths from the day prior. That means the country has continued to average about 1,200 deaths a day. 141,648 new cases were reported in the U.S. on Sunday, increasing by an average of 54% from 14 days ago.
National numbers show there were 83,782 hospitalized patients across the U.S. reported as of Sunday, and 16,206 of them remain in ICUs, according to the COVID Tracking Project.
Latest on vaccines
The drug company AstraZeneca on Monday announced early results from its late stage clinical trial showed that its COVID-19 vaccine was about 70% effective, making it the third company in the past two weeks to release promising results on its vaccine development.
Conducted in Brazil and the United Kingdom, the British-Swedish company said Monday the results were based on 131 COVID-19 cases. Two dosing experiments were used throughout the trial, where one was 90% effective in preventing the virus, while the other showed it was 62% effective.
The vaccine, developed in partnership with the University of Oxford, comes on the heels of Pfizer and Moderna’s announcement earlier this month, where both said that late-stage clinical trials showed its vaccines were about 95% effective.
AstraZeneca said it would start seeking emergency authorization to distribute the vaccine this week and plans to submit its data to regulating boards in Britain, Europe and Brazil.