As COVID cases ease, here’s how close Fresno region is to easing restrictions
Four California counties have migrated to less-restrictive tiers within the state’s business-reopening coronavirus blueprint. But neither Fresno County nor its neighboring counties in the central San Joaquin Valley were among them.
Fresno, Kings, Madera, Merced and Tulare counties remain in purple Tier 1, the most restrictive level of California’s color-coded “Blueprint for a Safer Economy.” But in data released Tuesday by the state Department of Public Health, each of the five Valley counties gained significant ground, through reduced numbers of new COVID-19 cases and a lower percentage of people testing positive for coronavirus, in moving toward red Tier 2 on the four-tier system.
The blueprint program introduced last summer guides the degree to which businesses can reopen from closures or capacity limits aimed at reducing the potential transmission of COVID-19 in the community. The tiers are based on the risk for COVID-19 to be passed from person to person on a county-by-county basis.
Purple Tier 1 represents “widespread” risk of viral transmission. Among Valley counties, only Mariposa County is in red Tier 2, denoting “substantial” risk of spreading the virus.
Marin, San Mateo, Shasta and Yolo counties each were promoted by state health officials from purple Tier 1 into red Tier 2 based on their new-case rates and percentage of positive tests for COVID-19 over the week of Feb. 7-13.
Trinity County slid backward in the blueprint, slipping from orange Tier 3 into red Tier 2.
The state reported Tuesday that Fresno County experienced an adjusted average of 16.6 new coronavirus cases per 100,000 residents each day for the week ending Feb. 13. That’s more than double the threshold of seven or fewer new cases needed to progress into red Tier 2. But it’s a vast improvement from just over a month ago, when the daily new-case rate was more than 75 per 100,000 residents.
A week ago, Fresno County’s new-case rate was about 23 per 100,000 residents.
New-case rates in neighboring counties were 21.8 per 100,000 residents in Kings County; 13.6 in Madera County; 19.5 in Merced County and 18.4 in Tulare County.
In the purple tier, restaurants are limited to take-out orders or outdoor dining and barred from serving diners indoors, although some establishments have been operating in defiance of that order. Similarly, fitness clubs and gyms are supposed to be limited to outdoor operations.
In the red tier, both restaurants and gyms would be authorized to reopen for indoor service with capacity limits.
Other metrics for tier assignment
While the Valley counties continue to exceed the threshold for new cases for promotion into a more advantageous tier, each has met or exceeded a second benchmark of the state’s requirements for the percentages of people tested for COVID-19 whose results come back positive for the virus.
But to advance to the less restrictive tier, counties must satisfy both the case-rate and testing positivity requirements of the new for two consecutive weeks.
There’s also a third requirement, a “health equity” score that attempts to ensure that people in the most socially and economically disadvantaged census tracts are not being infected by the virus at a significantly greater rate than more affluent areas of a county.
In Kings, Madera and Merced counties, positive-test rates in those poorest neighborhoods all meet the requirements to move into Tier 2. Fresno County and Tulare County are closing in on the threshold, but aren’t there yet.
The state’s tier system is comprised of:
Purple Tier 1 – “Widespread” risk of spread in counties with an adjusted rate of new daily cases of more than seven per 100,000 residents over the course of a week or more than 8% of residents who test for the virus showing positive results. On Tuesday, 47 of California’s 58 counties were in Tier 1.
Red Tier 2 – “Substantial” risk of spread in counties with a rate of four to seven new daily cases per 100,000 and a testing positivity rate between 5% and 8%. Nine counties are in this range now.
Orange Tier 3 – “Moderate” risk of viral spread in counties in which the daily new-case rate is between one and four per 100,000 residents and a testing positivity rate between 2% and 5%. Two counties are in this tier: Alpine and Sierra, both sparsely populated rural counties in Eastern California.
Yellow Tier 4 – “Minimal” risk of spreading the virus in counties with a daily new-case rate under one per 100,000, and testing positivity of less than 2%. None of California’s counties are in this least-restrictive tier.
This story was originally published February 23, 2021 at 1:32 PM.
