Fresno, Clovis ordered bars closed on St. Patrick’s Day 2020. Plenty are still shut down
One year ago, on St. Patrick’s Day 2020, the cities of Fresno and Clovis ordered the closure of bars and prohibited indoor dining at restaurants, the first round of local limitations on businesses aimed at curbing the spread of the novel coronavirus.
The cities made their announcements on March 17, just 11 days after the first confirmed case of COVID-19 had been identified in Fresno County. By that point, there were just two people with coronavirus in the county.
Over the past 12 months, more than 97,600 people have been confirmed as having the virus in Fresno County, and 1,543 have died.
Now, as then, Fresno County bars are closed and restaurants not allowed to serve people in their indoor dining rooms, as the county remains in the most restrictive tier, purple Tier 1, of the state’s Blueprint for a Safer Economy based on risk of viral transmission in the county.
There are – or were – 52 active bars or nightclubs with on-sale liquor licenses from the state Bureau of Alcoholic Beverage Control. Those operations are not supposed to be open, although some have creatively engineered partnerships with food trucks or restaurants to provide food and allow them to remain open for outdoor service only.
The state Department of Public Health reported Wednesday another 118 new cases of COVID-19 in Fresno County since Tuesday’s update. The county has averaged almost 128 new cases each day over the past week, and has amassed more than 2,200 cases since the beginning of March.
Eight additional deaths were reported by mid-afternoon Wednesday by the Fresno County Department of Public Health. Hospitals in the county were treating 132 confirmed COVID-19 patients, including 31 sick enough to require treatment in intensive-care units.
Since the first vaccines against the coronavirus won emergency-use authorization in mid-December, more than 276,000 doses have been administered in Fresno County, a one-day increase of almost 14,000 shots, according to state health department data.
Neighboring Merced County surpassed 30,000 cases to date on Wednesday, adding 48 new cases since Tuesday’s report. Also on Wednesday, Mariposa County reported its 400th case over the past year.
Around the Valley
In other central San Joaquin Valley counties, Wednesday updates included:
Kings County: 16 new cases, 22,424 to date; no additional deaths, 236 to date. More than 7,200 of the cases, and 17 deaths, have been among inmates at state prisons in Avenal and Corcoran.
Madera County: Four new cases, 15,741 to date; no additional deaths, 226 to date. The figures include almost 2,500 cases among inmates at state prisons near Chowchilla.
Mariposa County: One new case, 400 to date; no additional deaths, seven to date.
Merced County: 48 new cases, 30,027 to date; two additional deaths, 425 to date.
Tulare County: 42 new cases, 48,691 to date; one additional death, 788 to date.
Since the first Valley cases of the global COVID-19 pandemic were reported 12 months ago, almost 215,000 people across the six-county region are confirmed to have had the virus, whether they experienced symptoms or not. Of those, 3,225 people have died.
This story was originally published March 17, 2021 at 4:42 PM.
