Fresno County’s coronavirus cases slow down. Eyes shift to reopening more businesses
Fresno County had 104 new cases of confirmed coronavirus infections on Wednesday, which makes for a total of 28,621 since the pandemic’s start, according to numbers from state health officials.
No new deaths were reported by state officials in the latest update. Total Fresno County deaths remain at 390 after eight new deaths were tallied on Tuesday by county officials.
Of Fresno County’s cases, 18,428 have recovered.
Limited indoor dining began returning to restaurants across Fresno this week as COVID-19 numbers improved enough to push the county into a less restrictive tier of state regulations.
Now that Fresno’s in the red tier, restaurants can serve people inside at 25% capacity or 100 people — whichever is fewer.
Counties move to red
The state health department on Tuesday posted its weekly update of counties’ COVID-19 risk classifications. Ten counties with populations combining for more than 6.4 million people improved to less restrictive tiers, and none of the state’s 58 counties were demoted to a more restrictive one.
Fresno, Sacramento, Yolo, Butte, Contra Costa, San Joaquin and Santa Barbara counties all moved from purple to red tier status. Amador, Calaveras and San Francisco counties moved from red to orange. None moved from orange to yellow.
Improvement from purple to red represents the biggest leap. It allows for the return of indoor restaurant dining, along with the reopening of gyms, places of worship, movie theaters, shopping malls and a few other types of businesses and activities, all with restrictions that include hard capacity limits and mandatory face coverings.
Around the Valley
Tulare County reported 63 new cases on Wednesday to reach 16,267 since the pandemic began. No change was reported to the 263 deaths.
Merced County added two deaths and 32 new cases, which now totals 145 and 8,993, respectively.
Madera County tallied another 26 case to push the total to 4,583. Three more deaths means the county has seen 68 total.
Mariposa County has reported 76 cases and two deaths.
Kings County added four new cases for a total of 7,682 — 3,352 in the state prisons at Avenal and Corcoran. There were no new deaths.
Global death toll
The worldwide fatality toll from the respiratory disease COVID-19 surpassed 1 million earlier this week, according to data maintained by Johns Hopkins University.
The United States continues to account for more than 20% of the global death toll: 206,000 of the more than 1,009,000 people who’ve died as of Wednesday morning, according to Johns Hopkins.
Next in terms of death toll are Brazil at nearly 143,000, India at over 97,000 and Mexico at 77,000. After those nations are the United Kingdom at 42,000 dead, Italy at nearly 36,000 fatalities, Peru at over 32,000, and France and Spain each approaching 32,000.
The Sacramento Bee contributed to this report.
This story was originally published September 30, 2020 at 4:36 PM.
