Fresno County keeps current reopening status. But as COVID-19 cases rise, for how long?
Restaurants, churches and other businesses in Fresno County will continue to be able to offer indoor services under the latest assessment of risk for spreading the novel coronavirus.
The California Department of Public Health announced Tuesday that Fresno County will remain in Tier 2 of the state’s four-level, color-coded Blueprint for a Safer Economy.
Tier 2, color-coded red for “substantial” risk of transmitting COVID-19 in the community, allows restaurants to serve meals indoors at up to 25% of capacity, churches to hold worship services at the lesser of 25% capacity or 100 people, and gyms and health clubs to allow indoor workouts at up to 10% capacity.
The state reported that the county experienced a rate of 6.7 new coronavirus cases per 100,000 residents daily for the week ending Oct. 17. That got Fresno Count back into compliance with the threshold of 7.0 cases per 100,000 residents to remain in red Tier 2.
Last week, the adjusted case rate was calculated at 7.3 per 100,000. If Fresno County had missed the 7.0 mark for a second consecutive week, it could have faced the prospect of being reassigned back into purple Tier 1, the most restrictive level of the state’s blueprint.
Under Tier 1, restaurants cannot offer indoor dining and are limited to outdoor and take-out or delivery service only, churches can only hold services outside, and fitness clubs are prohibited from holding indoor workouts.
A second factor in the state’s tier assignments is measuring the percentage of people tested for the virus over the course of a week whose results come back positive for the infection. That positivity rate needs to be under 8% for a county to stay in the red tier. Fresno County’s positivity rate reported Tuesday by the state was 5.0%.
“We skated through this week,” Dr. Rais Vohra, Fresno County’s interim health officer, said Tuesday afternoon of remaining in red for another week. “We couldn’t do it without everyone being on board” with recommended safety precautions such as wearing masks, maintaining social distancing and avoiding large gatherings.
“Right now we’re doing well, but every week is a new week,” he added. “Because we’re sort of on the border (between red and purple), we have to be prepared for the state to come back and say we’re at risk for a more restrictive tier.”
Also remaining in red Tier 2 this week are neighboring Kings and Merced counties. Mariposa County continues to be in yellow Tier 4, the least restrictive tier representing “minimal” risk of transmission. Madera and Tulare counties have yet to climb out of purple Tier 1 since the blueprint was launched in late August.
For counties in red Tier 2, the next goal – beyond avoiding a backslide into Tier 1 – will be to progress into orange Tier 3, denoting “moderate” risk of transmission. To move into orange, a county needs to have a new-case rate of fewer than four per 100,000 residents, and a testing positivity rate of less than 5%. They have to meet those criteria for at least two weeks before formally entering that next level.
Additionally, counties must also meet a “health equity” metric indicating that the 25% of census tracts that are most disadvantaged in a county do not have testing positivity rates that are out of alignment with more affluent neighborhoods. For the orange tier, Fresno County would need to achieve a testing positivity rate of less than 5.2% in those disadvantaged areas. In the state’s report Tuesday, Fresno County health equity score came in at 6.2% – low enough to stay in red, but not low enough to allow promotion into orange.
Fresno County has been flirting for the past few weeks with the threshold between the purple and red tiers, with its rate of cases per 100,000 residents ticking slightly above it on Oct. 6, below it on Oct. 13, and just above last week before dipping below again on Tuesday.
When the tier system was put in place by the state in late August, 38 of California’s counties – representing about 87% of the state’s population – were in purple Tier 1. As of Tuesday, only nine counties remain in that most restrictive level: Imperial, Los Angeles, Madera, Monterey, Riverside, San Bernardino, Sonoma, Tehama and Tulare.
Another 21 counties are in the red tier, while 17 are now in orange Tier 3. Nine counties – mostly smaller, rural and less populated ones – are in yellow Tier 4.
This story was originally published October 27, 2020 at 12:03 PM.
