Fresno adds 875 new COVID-19 cases. Foster Farms Fresno worker dies, company confirms
Fresno County added 875 new COVID-19 cases to its count on Wednesday, bringing the total to 65,149 since the pandemic began here in March.
While neither state nor county data reported on Wednesday any additional coronavirus deaths, officials with Cal/OSHA told The Fresno Bee they were notified Dec. 28 that a Foster Farms worker infected in a plant COVID-19 outbreak had died.
It’s unclear whether that death is accounted for in the total number of deaths reported in state data, which has remained at 646 since at least Tuesday.
The death follows a 193-person COVID-19 outbreak earlier this month at the Cherry Avenue Foster Farms poultry plant in south Fresno.
The six counties in the central San Joaquin Valley together added 1,811 new cases on Wednesday. Those same counties reported 15 additional deaths.
For the region, hospitals’ intensive care unit availability remained at 0%.
Every county in the region, with the exception of Mariposa, remained in the Purple Tier of California’s Blueprint for a Safer Economy. Mariposa remained in the Red Tier. But all counties remained under Gov. Gavin Newsom’s extended stay home order.
Other Valley counties
Tulare County reported 547 new cases Wednesday, bringing the total to 33,125. Ten more people died, according to numbers reported Wednesday, bringing the total of fatal cases up to 399.
Merced County reported four new deaths on Wednesday, bringing the total to 252. County data also showed 179 new laboratory-confirmed positive infections, pushing the county’s running total to 19,245 known cases since March.
Kings County added 106 new cases but no new deaths on Wednesday, which totals 15,915 and 110, respectively.
Madera County reached 10,273 cases after adding 101 on Wednesday. One more COVID-19 patient died, bringing that total to 117.
Mariposa County reported three new cases for a total of 226. No deaths were reported Wednesday. A total of four people have died since March.