COVID cases surge in Fresno area. How would counties fare under California’s old tiers?
More than 800 new coronavirus cases have been reported this week in Fresno County through Thursday, continuing a new surge of COVID-19 infections that has increased each week since California lifted its color-coded system of business and social restrictions aimed at limiting the spread of the virus.
The rising tide of cases, both in Fresno County and across neighboring counties in the central San Joaquin Valley, is enough to drive the rates of new daily cases to a point where, if the now-defunct Blueprint for a Safer Economy were still in place, all five counties would find themselves back in purple Tier 1, the most restrictive level of the risk-based system.
The blueprint’s tiers were put in place almost a year ago, when California and its counties were amid a summertime surge of cases. The tiers were based on two key measures: the average number of new cases per day as a rate per 100,000 residents; and the percentage of coronavirus tests in a week showing positive results for the virus.
The tiers, assigned on a county-by-county basis, replaced a more cumbersome system of gauging the risk of COVID-19 transmission and spread in counties. Before they were discontinued, the tier levels were:
- Purple Tier 1, denoting “widespread” transmission of the virus within the community with more than 10 cases per day per 100,000 residents in a county.
- Red Tier 2, denoting “substantial” spread of the virus with more than six cases per day per 100,000 residents.
- Orange Tier 3, denoting “moderate” transmission in the county at a rate of more than two cases per day per 100,000 residents.
- Yellow Tier 4, denoting “minimal” viral spread at fewer than two cases per day per 100,000 residents.
On June 15, when the tiers were lifted by Gov. Gavin Newsom and the California Department of Public Health, Fresno, Kings, Madera, Merced and Tulare counties all resided in orange Tier 3, a level at which many businesses could reopen indoors with capacity limits and requirements for physical distancing and for customers and staff to wear face coverings.
Counties’ new-case rates under the blueprint were calculated on an adjusted basis after discounting cases in prisons and a few other circumstances.
With the new surge in cases – which health officials say is likely due to the highly contagious Delta variant of coronavirus that has spread rapidly around the world and become the dominant strain related to new cases in California and the U.S. – updated raw calculations by The Bee of new-case rates among Valley counties shows that each of the five counties have burst through what were the ceilings for the orange and red tiers and would now be solidly in purple Tier 1.
The current unadjusted daily new-case rates in each Valley county are:
- Fresno County: 15.9 per 100,000, residents, about seven times higher than it was before the tiers were lifted.
- Kings County: 22.6 per 100,000 residents, about five times higher than when the county was in the orange tier.
- Madera County: 18.1 per 100,000 residents, almost nine times higher than before June 15.
- Merced County: 16.0 per 100,000 residents, almost six times higher than it was before the tiers were lifted. The Merced County rate is as of July 23, the most recent date for which daily counts were provided by the county’s health department. A new update is expected on Friday.
- Tulare County: 13.3 per 100,000 residents, more than six times higher than when the county was in the orange tier. Because Tulare County’s Department of Health and Human Services only updates its case counts once a week on Wednesdays, the unadjusted rates for Tulare County were calculated using daily case counts from the state Department of Public Health.
