COVID-19 cases inch upward in Fresno County. Could more hospitalizations follow?
The average number of people being treated in Fresno County hospitals for COVID-19 has trickled higher over the past two weeks, but the burden of coronavirus patients on hospitals is nowhere near where it was earlier this summer.
As of Tuesday, the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases serious enough to warrant hospitalization stood at 91 in Fresno County. Over the past two weeks, the daily average number of hospitalized patients was just over 96, compared to a two-week average of fewer than 84 patients on Oct. 1.
And over the past week, the daily average number of new confirmed COVID-19 infections among Fresno County residents has climbed. On Wednesday, the state Department of Public Health reported 56 new coronavirus cases in the county.
Medical professionals expect that this winter’s flu season will be aggravated by the novel coronavirus as business sectors gradually reopen and people begin resuming more activities in public. An increase in cases typically precedes an accompanying rise in hospitalizations by up to a week.
On July 1, the two-week average of patients hospitalized for the coronavirus was just below 100 in Fresno County. By mid-July, the figure reached 200, and peaked at just shy of 300 in early August before slowly tapering off.
But for now, the number of COVID-19 cases is well below a summer peak that– along with the ordinary seasonal demands of serious ailments and conditions that typically require attention – stretched hospitals to their limits.
Fresno County is in its third week in the second tier of the state’s Blueprint for a Safer Economy, which assigns each California county to a color-coded tier for reopening or expanding operations by different business sectors based on the risk for transmission of the coronavirus in the community. Fresno, Merced and Kings counties are in Tier 2, color-coded red to denote “substantial” risk. Each of the three counties climbed out of purple Tier 1, the most restrictive tier, based on reducing the average number of new daily cases to fewer than seven per 100,000 and achieving a rate of fewer than 8% of COVID-19 tests returning as positive for the infection.
Among highlights of the red tier, restaurants may offer indoor dining at up to 25% of their seating capacity; churches and houses of worship may hold indoor services at up to 25% capacity or 100 people, whichever is fewer; and gyms and health clubs may open indoors at up to 10% capacity.
Around the Valley
Across neighboring counties in the central San Joaquin Valley, Wednesday case updates included:
Fresno County: 56 new cases Wednesday, 29,579 to date; no additional deaths, 424 to date; 19,407 people recovered. Fresno County only updates deaths and recoveries on Tuesdays and Fridays.
Kings County: Seven new cases Wednesday, 8,103 to date; no additional deaths, 82 to date; 6,433 people recovered. The case totals include 3,634 cases among inmates at state prisons in Avenal and Corcoran.
Madera County: 12 new cases Wednesday, 4,808 to date; two additional deaths, 73 to date; 4,402 people recovered.
Mariposa County: No new cases Wednesday, 77 to date; no additional deaths, two to date; 74 people recovered.
Merced County: 21 new cases Wednesday, 9,286 to date; no additional deaths, 152 to date; recoveries not reported.
Tulare County: 39 new cases Wednesday, 17,015 to date; four additional deaths, 273 to date; 16,178 people recovered.
Throughout the six Valley counties, nearly 69,000 people are confirmed through testing to have been infected with COVID-19 at some point since the first local cases of the global pandemic in March, whether they experienced symptoms or not. Of those, the disease has claimed 1,006 lives.
This story was originally published October 14, 2020 at 2:35 PM.
