Fresno, Merced can expect Valley COVID-19 stay-at-home order to continue, Newsom says
Gov. Gavin Newsom on Monday repeated his message that he will “likely” extend a regional stay-at-home order that has kept restaurants and other businesses closed for indoor services in the San Joaquin Valley.
The Valley stay-at-home order was set to expire Monday. But based on the continuing lack of capacity in intensive care units, Newsom said that order will probably continue.
Newsom said a formal announcement on the stay-at-home order’s status will be made Tuesday, after the latest numbers for virus infections are considered.
Fresno County is in one of the regions that continues to rake in one of California’s highest number of daily new infections. The county ranked in seventh place Monday among the state’s 58 counties for the most cases.
The San Joaquin Valley region, as it pertains to COVID-19 orders, refers, to Fresno, Merced, Stanislaus, Calaveras, Kern, Kings, Madera, Mariposa, San Benito, San Joaquin, Tulare, and Tuolumne counties.
Newsom has said he’s likely to also extend the order in Southern California, where it’s set to end this week.
Newsom said the health care system is still facing the surge from the Thanksgiving holiday and expects a “surge on a surge” from the end of the year holidays.
“We likely will experience ... this surge tacked on top of these other surges related to holiday activities,” he said. “
The remarks come as the situation in California continues to worsen. Statewide aggregate intensive care unit availability has been down to 0% since Christmas Eve. In addition, California has reported the more new COVID-19 cases per capita in the past week than any other state, according to Johns Hopkins University.
The state averages 37,661 new cases a day in seven-day average, according to Newsom, and the state’s positivity rate is 12.5%.
The number of people admitted to a hospital has increased by 38% in the past two weeks, according to health officials. “That’s actually more modest in terms of increase over the past month or so,” Newsom said.
The Valley and Southern California continue to effectively have 0% space in ICUs.
Fresno County is still below the 15% ICU availability requirement needed to reopen the economy, reporting 0% bed availability as of last week. Just seven ICU beds were available across the county on Christmas, down from the 18 beds that were available at the start of the week. There are 620 residents who are hospitalized, where 139 remain in the ICU.
Merced County had six staffed and available ICU beds through Sunday. Fifty-three people who tested positive for the virus remain hospitalized, according to health officials.
The state saw 64 deaths on Monday by midday related to the coronavirus, health officials say. Over the seven-day average, the state has seen 230 deaths a day and 3,238 on average over 14 days.
Officials continue to plead with Californians to not gather even during the New Year’s Eve weekend, according to Dr. Mark Ghaly, California’s secretary of health and human services.
“We’re worried not just about what is happening the past couple of weeks, but the cases we’re going to see from Christmas and Hanukkah,” he said.
This story was originally published December 28, 2020 at 12:48 PM.
