Fresno County reports 731 new COVID cases. Valley sees 29 deaths over holiday weekend
Fresno County reported 731 new cases of COVID-19 on Monday, following a Christmas weekend officials have feared will cause another surge, on top of the existing surge from Thanksgiving gatherings.
The county now has recorded 63,811 cases and 646 deaths from COVID-19, according to state numbers. The number of deaths are not updated daily.
The six-county region of Fresno, Kings, Madera, Mariposa, Merced and Tulare counties reported at least 4,329 new cases and 29 deaths on Monday. Only Fresno and Kings reported during Christmas with the rest holding over tallies from before Christmas Eve.
Fresno County and the San Joaquin Valley region is still below the 15% intensive care units availability requirement needed to reopen the economy, reporting 0% bed availability as of last week.
Just seven ICU beds were available across Fresno 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.
The Valley continues to effectively have 0% space in hospital ICUs.
California enters the final week of 2020 as the U.S. epicenter of the coronavirus crisis.
The state of 40 million people has seen more than 2.1 million test positive and at least 24,220 die of COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic, according to the California Department of Public Health.
More than 570,000 of those cases and 3,250 of the deaths have come in the past two weeks — averages of about 41,000 cases and 231 deaths per day, both record highs for the state. California has reported the highest number of new cases per capita in the past week of any state, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
Stay-at-home order expected to continue
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.
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.
Other Valley counties
Tulare County reported 13 deaths and 1,687 new cases in the first report since Thursday. The county has tallied 32,109 cases and 386 deaths so far during the pandemic.
Merced County health officials said 16 new deaths and 1,058 new cases were added to the total Monday, the first report since Wednesday. That brings the tally to 248 deaths and 18,843 cases total.
Kings County added 143 news cases but no new deaths to the total. That totals 15,767 cases and 110 deaths since the pandemic began.
Madera County surpassed the 10,000-mark on Monday, tallying 10,015 cases, 710 more than was last reported on Thursday. No deaths changed the total of 116 during that same time.
Mariposa County did not report any changes to its 220 cases and four deaths.
