Fresno County COVID cases exceed 71,000. State updates travel restrictions
Fresno County reported 433 new cases on Thursday to reach 71,404 cases since the pandemic began, and officials have updated travel restrictions.
The county does not report deaths daily and hasn’t reported any new deaths since Jan. 1, when it said 65 new deaths were recorded. The total remained at 711 on Thursday.
As of Thursday there were 655 Fresno County patients hospitalized from COVID-19, according to health officials. That is 40 fewer than the previous day.
Eight intensive care unit beds were open.
Even without a Fresno update, the six-county region of Fresno, Kings, Madera, Mariposa, Merced and Tulare have reported 60 deaths since Monday.
Coronavirus hospitalizations and deaths are already hitting staggering highs in California, with it still too early for either Christmas or New Year’s Eve celebrations to be a significant factor in either figure.
And in the past two weeks, 4,410 Californians have died of the disease for an average of 315 per day, according to the California Department of Public Health.
The state reported 583 new deaths Thursday, two shy of the record-high 585 reported on New Year’s Day. But that 585 figure included a large holiday-linked backlog from Los Angeles County. Wednesday’s figure was anchored by 257 new Los Angeles deaths, which county health officials did not link to a backlog.
The state in Thursday’s update breached 28,000 confirmed virus deaths and 2.5 million lab-positive cases of COVID-19, according to the CDPH.
State travel restrictions updated
CDPH on Wednesday posted updated guidelines outlining the COVID-19 risk associated with traveling, expanding on and superseding an advisory sent on Nov. 13 with two main updates.
First, the new guidelines shorten the self-quarantine period from 14 to 10 days for non-essential out-of-state travelers, consistent with more recent Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommendations. Non-essential travelers are still “strongly discouraging” from entering California.
Second, the update says Californians should limit non-essential travel to a maximum of 120 miles from home within the state in addition to avoiding other states or countries.
The advisory was tightened at least in part due to the new variant of the virus recently confirmed in California.
Other Valley counties
Tulare County reported nine more deaths on Thursday, which brings the total to 442. The total number of cases there was 36,214 that day after adding 324 new cases.
Merced County added six deaths and 224 cases for totals of 275 and 21,139, respectively.
Kings County tallied 197 new cases, pushing the total to 17,086. No deaths were added Thursday to the total of 110.
Madera County added 198 cases, bringing the total to 11,531. No deaths changed the total of 126.
Mariposa County reported 19 new cases in the county that totals 296. The death toll remained at four.
The Sacramento Bee contributed to this report.
