Fresno County COVID-19 cases stabilizing. Here’s a look at when we may hit red tier
Fresno County is closing in on state requirements that would allow locals to eat inside a restaurant and then exercise that meal away inside a fitness center.
But close isn’t close enough for businesses hammered by coronavirus safety restrictions for more than a year.
Still, California’s new vaccine benchmark goal to provide at least 2 million doses in some of the state’s most economically disadvantaged neighborhoods clears the way for several central San Joaquin Valley counties to graduate from the most-restrictive purple tier to the red tier under the color-coded Blueprint for a Safer Economy.
More than half of residents in Fresno, Kings, Madera, Merced, and Tulare counties live in neighborhoods that qualify for those set-aside doses, according to a Fresno Bee analysis of HPI data.
Fresno, Madera, and Merced counties could reach the less-restrictive tier in about another week or so, but other Valley communities could graduate in the coming days.
On Friday, California health officials said Kings and Tulare counties, along with Lake, Monterey, Riverside, Sacramento, San Diego, San Joaquin, Santa Barbara, Sutter, Tehama, Ventura and Yuba counties, could move into the red tier on Tuesday, “if the data stays steady.”
Dr. Mark Ghaly, secretary of California’s Health & Human Services Agency, said new tier assignments would come on Tuesday and take effect Wednesday.
Thirteen counties climbed into the red tier as they already meet the new lower standards — Amador, Colusa, Contra Costa, Los Angeles, Mendocino, Mono, Orange, Placer, San Benito, San Bernardino, Siskiyou, Sonoma, and Tuolumne.
In the red tier, restaurants can resume indoor dining at up to 25% of capacity, gyms can reopen their indoor workout spaces at up to 10% of capacity, and other types of businesses can reopen or expand their operations.
Counties must also meet a threshold of less than 8% of residents tested for COVID-19 returning positive results over a seven-day period. Counties must meet or beat both the case-rate and testing positivity benchmarks for two straight weeks to be promoted to the red tier.
Weekend COVID numbers
The state shared newly reported cases of coronavirus by county Saturday.
Fresno County: 159 new cases, 97,185 new cases since the pandemic started.
Kings County: 50 new cases, 22,233 to date.
Madera County: 36 new cases reported, 15,761 to date.
Mariposa County: Zero new cases, 376 to date.
Merced County: 63 new cases, 29,064 to date.
Tulare County: 63 new cases, 47,772 to date.
This story was originally published March 13, 2021 at 10:02 AM.
