Tulare County being monitored by state

Tulare County is one of eight counties in California being monitored by the state when it comes to the progress it’s making in recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic.

That information was shared by Tulare County Health and Human Services Director Tim Lutz at the Tulare County Board of Supervisors meeting on Tuesday.

Of the eight counties being monitored by the state, four are in Central California: Fresno, Kings and San Joaquin Counties are also being monitored along with Tulare County. Lutz said the state may be monitoring those four counties to see what’s happening on a regional level.

Lutz said there’s three stages to the monitoring process and Tulare County is at stage 2. The standard in stage 2, he said, is basically if the county doesn’t continue to make “sufficient” progress in recovering from COVID-19 over a 14-day period, then stricter measures such as more “general stay-athome provisions” would need to be put in place.

Lutz said in stage 3, “if a county makes insufficient or no progress, then state health officers may take action.” He added he wasn’t clear on exactly what that meant.

Lutz said the county needs to continue to take all the safety precautions it has taken so it will be in a “better position” when it comes to a possible second surge in the fall.

Tulare County is now set to enter into stage 3 of reopening businesses on Friday. On Friday such places as gyms, hotels for tourism, campgrounds and movie theaters can open and outdoor recreation is now allowed

But movie theaters can only open at 25 percent capacity or have 100 customers — whichever is lower. On the Galaxy 9 Theater Porterville website, it states no movies are scheduled to be shown through June 15.

Casinos have also been opening in the state. As of Tuesday, the Eagle Mountain Casino website said it was still closed through June 15.

A topic of discussion at the meeting was why hair salons are being allowed to open but nail salons still can’t open and Lutz really didn’t have an answer for that question. “For some reason the state is hung up on nail salons,” he said.

There was a spike in COVID-19 cases in Tulare County on Tuesday, which is typical, Lutz said, because the processing of positive tests over the weekend aren’t completed until Tuesday. He reported on Tuesday there has been 2,381 COVID-19 cases in Tulare County. The county reported 2,220 cases on Monday.

Lutz also said recoveries continue to increase as there are now 1,497 people in Tulare County who tested positive for COVID-19 who have recovered. “We continue to see a strong uptick in recoveries,” he said.

Lutz also reported no new deaths as the number of deaths in Tulare County due to COVID-19 remained at 94.

And the number of active cases in the county remained relatively low as there was a slight increase up to 790.

And despite the increase in cases at nursing homes last week, the reported number of confirmed cases at nursing homes in the county remained about the same

at 384.

And the number of hospitalizations in the county due to COVID-19 decreased considerably as it was reported there were 28 hospitalizations on Tuesday. Of the 28, eight were in intensive care.

Lutz added with the increased economic activity in the county and with more people out and about, an increase in cases can be expected.

He did say there has been a resurgence of cases at nursing homes. Several nursing homes have had several additional cases, Lutz said.

The most troubling was at Visalia’s Linwood Meadows, which reported 18 more cases and three deaths last week.

Lutz also said the county continues to have a large number of cases at food processing facilities such as Ruiz Foods in Dinuba and Tulare.

And there’s a number of correctional officers from the prisons in Avenal and Corcoran who live in Tulare County who have tested positive for COVID-19.

As far as the Porterville Development Center’s alternative care site, Lutz said there was a rumor positive COVID-19 inmates from Avenal and Corcoran could be placed at PDC but added “I think that plan might have gone out the window.”

“There’s still a lot of inconsistencies on the facility unfortunately,” said

Lutz about the state’s direction on how the facility could possibly be used.

As far as testing in the county, 7.5 percent of tests conducted tested positive for COVID-19 last week, an increase over 5.6 percent from the previous week, Lutz said. But the county remains below the eight percent standard set by the state.

One reason for the increase was the high positive rate reported at the testing site at the Porterville Veterans Hall. Lutz said there was a 14.4 percent positive rate in Porterville last week.

But on Monday and Tuesday, there was the maximum number of tests scheduled at the Porterville site at 132. The site at Dinuba had 116 out of a maximum 132 conducted on Monday and as of Tuesday morning had 109 tests scheduled.

The state wants testing facilities to be testing at least at 80 percent capacity and Lutz said there was the danger of the Porterville site being closed.

Testing is free and the state pays for tests that are done for those who are uninsured. To make an appointment for testing visit https://lhi.care/covidtesting/.

BY THE NUMBERS

The county did report a considerable increase of cases in Southeastern Tulare County, including Porterville. There have been 220 cases in Southeastern Tulare County.

The official tally for Lindsay is 133. There have been 415 cases in Dinuba and 344 cases in Tulare. There have been 93 cases in Southwestern Tulare County, five cases in foothill/mountain communities, 81 cases in Farmersville, 27 cases in Exeter, 11 cases in Goshen, 22 cases in Ivanhoe, 13 cases in Traver, 19 cases in Woodlake, 11 cases in the Reedley area and 11 cases in Orange

Cove. The rest of the cases have been in Visalia.

Thirty-four cases were reported as travel-related, 1,152 cases were due to person-to-person contact and 1,195 cases are under investigation.

There have been 225 cases ages 0-17, 322 cases ages 18-25, 570 cases ages 26-40, 787 cases ages 41-64 and 477 cases ages 65 and older.

The number of those who are in self-quarantine and being monitored by public health officials remained the same at 994.

With about 470,000 people in Tulare County, the number of cases in the county is close to 4.8 per thousand or .48 percent. The county’s doubling time — the amount of days it would take for cases to double – remained the same at 51 days, meaning the curve of cases in the county is remaining flat.

As of 5 p.m. Tuesday, Sierra View Medical Center reported it had 48 confirmed COVID-19 cases, including eight inpatient COVID-19 cases. Sierra View has had 12 deaths due to COVID-19.

The hospital reported it has had 1,360 tests conducted as of Monday while there have been 5,355 tests conducted at the Tulare County testing lab as of Monday.

Lutz said the county has spent more than $1.8 million in the areas of testing and contact tracing. He added the county will be helped by $332,000 from the CARES Act. The funding being allocated to the state goes to local health jurisdictions, he said.

FOODLINK DONATIONS

Lutz also reported on donations to Foodlink, stating the organization has received 524,000 pounds of food donated in Tulare County. He added Foodlink has provided food to nearly 57,000 people in the county.