Lower increase of cases in Tulare County
Hair, nail salons, barbers can offer services outdoors
There could be a light at the end of the tunnel when it comes to Tulare County’s recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic based on the numbers reported from over the weekend.
Tulare County Health and Human Services reported there have now been 6,896 cases in the county, an increase of 213 over the 6,683 that was reported on Friday.
That’s an increase of about 70 cases a day over the last three days which is much lower than the trend that has been happening.
It should be noted not all the cases from the weekend are processed until Tuesday, but the lower rate of increase reported on Monday is still encouraging.
Tulare County’s R number which projects how how fast the virus will spread remained about the same at 1.07. That number represents the average number of people an infected person would infect.
The county also reported two more deaths over the weekend, bringing the total number of deaths in Tulare County to 167. The state model now projects Tulare County will have 291 deaths by August 19.
And the number of recoveries also remained virtually the same as only one more recovery was reported over the weekend. There are now 3,821 people in Tulare County who have recovered after testing positive for COVID-19.
So there are now 2,908 active cases in Tulare County.
There have been 68 cases reported as travel-related, 2,317 cases due to per
person-to-person contact and 4,511 cases are unknown.
There have been 820 cases ages 0-17, 1,080 cases ages 18-25, 1,909 cases ages 26-40, 2,164 cases ages 41-64 and 920 cases ages 65 and older.
There have been 3,383 cases who have been Hispanic, 691 who have been caucasian, 106 who have been Asian, 29 who have been Africanamerican, 11 who have been Native-american, 59 who have been multirace and 2,617 are unknown.
There are 331 people in Tulare County who are under self-quarantine and being monitored by public health officials.
With a population of about 470,000 people, Tulare County has had more than 1.4 cases per 100 residents or 1.4 percent. Another encouraging number was Tulare County’s doubling time — the amount of days it would take for cases to double — increased slightly, indicating a flatter curve. As of Sunday, Tulare County’s doubling time was 26.1 days.
As of 4:30 p.m. Monday, Sierra View Medical Center reported it has had 166 positive COVID-19 tests. Sierra
View has had 23 deaths due to COVID-19.
Sierra View now has 15 employees who have now tested positive for COVID-19 and 14 employees who have recovered after testing positive for COVID-19.
As far as its capacity, Sierra View reports it’s in solid shape. The number of COVID-19 hospitalizations at Sierra View is now at 19. There are now four of 10 ICU beds and two of 16 available ventilators in use at Sierra View.
HAIR SALONS UPDATE
Hair and nail salons and barbers are back in business — outdoors.
Governor Gavin Newsom announced new guidelines on Monday that allows for those such as hair stylists and barbers to offer services again, but only outdoors.
Those in the hair salon industry have been lobbying Newsom to allow them to work again outdoors. Many say they would like to work from home.
The new guidelines allow for hair services provided by hair stylists and barbers and other services such as skin care, nails and massage to be offered outdoors.
Other services though such as tattooing, electrolysis and piercing still aren’t allowed anywhere — indoors or outdoors.
And the state calls for county health officials to approve the new guidelines before they are in place. As of Monday afternoon, Tulare County Health and Human Services hadn’t made an announcement concerning the new guidelines.
And the new guidelines are still still strict and can be found here: https://files.covid19.ca.gov/pdf/guidance-outdoor-hair-salons--en.pdf