Fresno omicron caseload to ‘get worse before it gets better,’ health officials say
Fresno County continued to report thousands of new cases of COVID-19 on Friday as the omicron variant hits the region and sends state transmission rates to an all-time high.
There were 2,045 new cases added to the county’s tally, which is now at 167,361, according to state numbers. Two more deaths bring that total to 2,415.
That is an average of 125 new cases per 100,000 residents in Fresno County over the past week.
Local health officials have said hospitals are stretched thin by the number of COVID cases compounding the other non-virus related visits. There were 390 patients confirmed to have COVID in Fresno-area hospitals, and 22 more believed to have it, according to state numbers on Friday.
The intensive case units had 62 patients with confirmed cases and two more suspected, numbers show.
“(That) puts us back to September when we did the original surge with delta,” Fresno County Emergency Medical Services Director Dan Lynch said Wednesday. “We’re still in a vertical trajectory. We’re expecting this to get worse before it gets better.”
Regional health officials have already implemented the “assess and refer” policy — which applies to Fresno, Kings, Tulare and Madera counties — when responding to medical calls to 911, which means emergency medical personnel who arrive in an ambulance will assess a patient to see if the person truly needs to be transported or can be referred to another medical provider.
California
State Department of Public Health officials on Thursday reported 108,000 new lab-confirmed cases, bringing the seven-day average to about 87,000, or 216 per 100,000 residents.
That means about one in 66 Californians tested positive for COVID-19 last week, not including unreported at-home test results.
The statewide case rate now exceeds the peak from California’s winter 2020 surge, which hit 112 per 100,000, by more than 100 daily cases per 100,000.
About 12,900 are hospitalized with confirmed coronavirus cases statewide, including just over 1,950 in intensive care units, according to CDPH. Hospitalizations are up 49% and ICU patients up 37% in the past week, according to state data.
Vaccines and boosters
Just over 80% of Californians ages 5 and older have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine to date, according to the state health department. For the state’s roughly 31 million adults, the rate is about 87%.
In Fresno, about 56% of the population is fully vaccinated, according to local health officials. About 60% of the county’s 12- to 17-year-olds have at least one vaccine and about 19% of those 5 to 11 have at least one.
State Health and Human Services Secretary Dr. Mark Ghaly, during a Wednesday news conference with Gov. Gavin Newsom, said Californians who chose to get vaccinated “should be celebrated.”
“Today, someone who decided for the last 13 months not to get vaccinated decided today was the day,” Ghaly said.
Other Valley counties
Tulare County added 826 cases, which means the total since March 2020 rose to 77,769, the state said on Friday. The number of deaths did not change, staying at 1,192.
Merced County reported 463 more cases on Friday, bringing the total to 48,904 during the pandemic, according to the state. Five more deaths pushed the total to 715.
Madera County has totaled 27,294 cases after adding 342 from the previous day, but did not change the 329 deaths, according to the state tally.
Kings County has 37,221 cases, which is 441 more than the previous day, state records show. The county’s death total of 391 remained unchanged.
Mariposa County counted 37 more cases to bring the total to 1,762 according to the state. No deaths were added to the total of six.
The Sacramento Bee contributed to this report.
