Coronavirus update: Fresno hospitals break records as ICU availability remains at 0%
With 553 new coronavirus cases added on Tuesday, Fresno County has now reached a total of 69,871 infections since the pandemic began.
The number of deaths remained at 711 as of Tuesday and is expected to be updated this week. The county typically reports deaths on Tuesdays and Fridays.
The county has rapidly been adding new cases in recent weeks, reporting an average of 799.6 new daily cases in the past week, racking up a total of 5,597. There were about 9.3 deaths a day over the same period.
The number of hospitalized patients countywide had totaled 686 patients as of Tuesday, an increase of 23 more than the previous day. Tuesday’s recorded number of hospitalizations broke a record, topping the previous high of 677 on Dec. 28., county health officials confirmed. That number of patients is nearly double the summer’s high point of 376 on July 23. Of those patients, 126 remain in the ICU.
Five additional beds were available in the ICU wards across Fresno County on Tuesday, bringing the total of available ICU beds to 11.
Despite the slight increase in beds, Fresno County and the entirety of the central San Joaquin Valley continues to report 0% ICU bed availability across the region. The Valley region includes Fresno, Merced, Stanislaus, Calaveras, Kern, Kings, Madera, Mariposa, San Benito, San Joaquin, Tulare, and Tuolumne counties.
There were 1,971 new cases added Tuesday in Madera, Merced, Mariposa, Fresno, Tulare, and Kings counties.
California on the brink of 2.5 million cases
At least 2,496,990 people in California had at one point been sick with the coronavirus as of Tuesday, up by 43,875 from the day before.
Another 503 Californians died of COVID-19 complications Tuesday, which brings the statewide number of deaths to 27,519. There are now 459,564 California residents who have been vaccinated, which makes up about 1.5% of the state population.
The state has been averaging about 38,038 new cases and about 362 new deaths per day over the past week, according to the California Department of Public Health.
The number of hospitalized patients has increased by more than 20% from the totals reported two weeks ago, with 21,597 people hospitalized with a confirmed case as of Tuesday. Among those patients, 4,634 are in intensive care.
National COVID-19 updates
More than 21.1 million Americans have been infected with COVID-19 since the first reported case was identified in Washington state nearly one year ago. That number increased by 238,763 new cases on Tuesday, while the number of deaths reached 357,378, up by 3,648 from the day before.
Over the past week, there has been an average of 219,650 cases per day.
As of Tuesday, there were 131,215 people hospitalized, of which 23,512 remain in the ICU, according to the Covid tracking project.
Americans who were injected with the first round of a coronavirus vaccine started receiving the second half of the two-dose Pfizer-BioNTech drug Monday after the initial 21-day waiting period had passed, The New York Times reports.
Hundreds of thousands of health care workers and residents of long-term care facilities have been administered the vaccine nationwide as the first recipients of the new drug following the country’s massive rollout just a few weeks ago.
The U.S. has shipped about 15 million vaccine doses across the country, but just 4.5 million people have been vaccinated thus far. There are about 21 million health care workers nationwide and three million residents in nursing homes and other long-term care facilities.
Public health officials say the two-stage process of administering the vaccine could be contributing to its slow distribution.