‘Just the tip of the iceberg.’ Fresno County COVID variant cases up sixfold, officials say
A week ago, Fresno County health officials knew there were about 50 residents who were confirmed to have been infected with more contagious variants of the novel coronavirus.
On Thursday, interim county health officer Dr. Rais Vohra said there are now more than 300 cases of variant strains that have been identified through genomic testing. He said there are likely thousands more undiscovered variant infections in Fresno County and neighboring counties in Central California.
“This is probably still just the tip of the iceberg,” he said in a video briefing with reporters. “It just indicates that we are accumulating more and more information and we’re frankly diagnosing more and more cases of these variant strains here in Fresno County.”
While the numbers – which are actually from tests that are at least several weeks old because of a lag in testing by the state Department of Public Health – represent a tiny fraction of the overall COVID-19 cases reported over the past 14 months in Fresno County, “these do represent a potential threat for creating problems for us,” Vohra said.
“These are variants of concern that are known to be more contagious (and) perhaps even more severe in their ability to cause human disease than the normal or conventional strain of coronavirus.”
Vohra said experts are attributing major surges of coronavirus cases in India and other countries in south Asia to the rising variants – strains of COVID-19 that arise from minute changes in the virus as it replicates and is passed from person to person.
“If you follow the international headlines you can see the nightmare scenario that those countries are experiencing,” he added.
About 250 of the 306 variant cases in Fresno County involve two coronavirus strains, B.1.427 and B.1.429, that are collectively known as the West Coast or California variants that emerged earlier this year.
Approximately 40 are from the B.1.1.7 variant, more commonly called the “UK variant” that was first identified last fall in the United Kingdom and has since spread to more than 200 countries around the world. “The UK variant is at least one and a half times as contagious” as the more common COVID-19 strain, Vohra said.
The rest, he said, are comprised of a South African variant, B.1.351, and the P.1 Brazilian variant.
Vohra said the variants concern him because of new modeling of coronavirus spread reported this week by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control. Those computer models – based on factors such as low vaccine acceptance or vaccination rates and declining compliance with guidelines to wear face coverings and maintain physical distancing to reduce transmission of the virus – suggest that “we will have another surge in June or July” in the U.S., Vohra said.
New modeling of the spread of coronavirus reported this week by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control indicates that “we will have another surge in June or July,” Vohra said.
“The way things are going with vaccinations, the way things are going in some areas that have less acceptance or have started to abandon masking and social distancing, and with these variants … it shows that the U.S. is not out of the woods,” Vohra said.
“It represents at least an early warning signal that, given the best numbers that we have, our top statisticians are saying that nationwide there are going to be pockets where you can only call it a surge because the numbers are going to go back up.”
Fresno County could be one such susceptible pocket based on what Vohra is observing and the prospect of many more yet-unreported variant cases in the region.
“I see Fresno as an area that has a little bit less penetrance of the vaccination rates,” he said. “I know that there’s still a struggle and perhaps some conflict related to things like masking and social distancing, and we’re still trying to promote those very safe and cost-effective and easy layers of protection.”
The latest coronavirus updates
The Fresno County Department of Public Health reported 40 new confirmed coronavirus cases on Thursday, pushing the county’s cumulative total to date to 101,491 since the first cases were identified 14 months ago. The death toll from COVID-19 in the county grew by three, bringing the number of fatalities in the pandemic to 1,680.
More than 281,000 residents in Fresno County have been “fully vaccinated” to date, meaning they’ve received either both doses of the two-shot regimen vaccines from Pfizer BioNTech or Moderna, or one dose of the single-shot Janssen/Johnson & Johnson vaccine. That amounts to 27.2% of the overall population in the county.
Elsewhere in the central San Joaquin Valley, county updates on Thursday included:
Kings County: Eight new cases, 22,941 to date; no additional deaths, 246 to date. The number of fully vaccinated residents in the county is up to 27,628, or 17.7% of the population.
Madera County: Eight new cases, 16,327 to date; no additional deaths, 242 to date. A total of 40,546 Madera County residents are now fully vaccinated, or 25.3% of the population.
Mariposa County: No new cases, 445 to date; no additional deaths, seven to date. The number of fully vaccinated residents in the county is up to 3,504, or 19.7% of the county’s population.
Merced County: The county reported 10 cases on Thursday, 31,711 to date; two additional deaths, 456 to date. 26.7% of the population age 18 and up is fully vaccinated.
Tulare County: 17 new cases, 49,531 to date; one additional death, 838 to date. A total of 118,336 Tulare County residents are now fully vaccinated, or 30.8% of the county’s population.
This story was originally published May 6, 2021 at 4:00 PM.
