COVID hospitalizations, cases jump in Fresno region over the weekend. See where we stand
Hospitalizations for COVID-19 infections continued to climb over the weekend in Fresno County and across the central San Joaquin Valley, with hundreds of people receiving inpatient care for the coronavirus and the respiratory disease it causes.
In Fresno County, 305 patients with confirmed cases of COVID-19 were sick enough to require hospital care as of Sunday, according to new data Monday from the California Department of Public Health. That’s an increase of 58% from seven days earlier, when 193 coronavirus patients were in hospitals across Fresno County.
The rise in the volume of COVID-19 patients in hospitals mirrors an upward surge in new infections being reported in Fresno County and its neighboring Valley counties – the result of not only a rapid increase in the nationwide spread of the omicron variant of coronavirus identified in southern Africa in November, but the highly contagious delta variant that for months was responsible for nearly all of the new COVID-19 cases in California and the U.S.
Throughout the central San Joaquin Valley – Fresno, Kings, Madera, Mariposa, Merced and Tulare counties – patients in hospital care with laboratory-confirmed cases of COVID-19 numbered 485 on Sunday, about 37% more than a week earlier at the end of the New Year’s holiday weekend.
The rise in hospitalizations, coupled with a growing number of health care workers who are becoming infected, prompted the state Department of Health Services to issue new guidance over the weekend reducing the period of time for which infected hospital and health care staff must quarantine before they can return to work.
Gary Herbst, CEO of Kaweah Health Medical Center in Visalia, said Monday that the state’s new rules now allow hospital workers who have tested positive or have been exposed to the virus to resume their duties after five days of quarantine or isolation without having to be retested, if they are not symptomatic.
“We’ve decided to take a more conservative approach,” Herbst said in a videoconference. Effective immediately, a Kaweah employee who tests positive for COVID-19 must quarantine for seven days, rather than the five directed in the state guidance. “At the end of seven days, if they are asymptomatic or improving each and every day, they can return to work without being tested.”
If an employee has been exposed but is experiencing no symptoms, they don’t need to quarantine and may come to work, but must wear a face covering, he added.
As of Monday, Herbst said 205 Kaweah Medical employees were off from work because they had tested positive for the coronavirus – more than double the 82 COVID-positive employees just a week ago.
Ambulance services are also being affected by the surge in infections and hospitalizations, said Dan Lynch, emergency medical services director for Fresno County.
Lynch said Monday that ambulance crews will soon be ordered once again to use an “assess-and-refer” protocol – perhaps as early as Wednesday morning – in which people who call for an ambulance will be asked to assess the patient before transporting them to a hospital emergency room.
If the person’s needs are not a true emergency condition, paramedics and emergency medical technicians are to refer them instead to their family doctor, an urgent-care facility or health clinic, or to a telehealth service, Lynch said. But if a patient is experiencing a true emergency, they will be taken to a hospital for care.
This would be the latest in a series of periods during the pandemic, when cases and hospitalizations put significant strain on hospitals and emergency rooms, that Valley counties have put such limits on ambulance services in place to reduce the burden on the medical system.
Weekend brings big increase in cases
Across the Valley on Monday, state and local health officials are reporting a large jump in the number of new coronavirus cases identified through testing since their previous reports on Friday.
Almost 4,600 new cases were reported in Fresno County over the weekend, as well as 12 additional deaths that were officially attributed to COVID-19, according to the Fresno County Department of Public Health. Those new cases push the total people who have been infected at some point in 22 months of the pandemic to almost 160,000 in Fresno County, including more than 2,400 deaths.
The Kings County Department of Public Health reported 750 new coronavirus cases over the weekend, bringing the cumulative total to date to 36,354. The death toll from the virus remained unchanged at 389 since March 2020.
In Merced County, 1,666 new confirmed cases were reported on Monday, as well as two additional fatalities. The new cases pushed Merced County beyond the 50,000-case threshold, bringing the total to date to 50,671, including 712 people who have died from COVID-19.
The Tulare County Department of Health & Human Services reported 1,100 new cases since its previous report on Friday. The cumulative infections to date number 74,036. Reported fatalities from COVID-19 remained unchanged over the weekend at 1,179.
This story was originally published January 10, 2022 at 12:40 PM.
