Surge at Sierra
Sierra View emergency room hit hard on Monday
Elementary schools can apply for waivers to open
The expected surge of COVID-19 cases that was expected months ago made its way to Sierra View Medical Center on Monday as far as the hospital’s overall ability to serve the community is concerned.
At the Tulare County Board of Supervisors meeting on Monday, Tulare County Health and Human Services director Tim Lutz reported there was a nine-hour wait at Sierra View’s emergency room on Monday.
As part of his weekly update to the board on the county’s COVID-19 pandemic response, Lutz reported private and public elementary schools can apply for a waiver to open up their campuses in counties that are on the state watch list, including Tulare County.
When it comes to Sierra View, Lutz said additional staff was made available to the hospital and the situation had improved on Tuesday morning. He added long-term staffing needs for the hospital will be evaluated including the possibility of using a military unit to assist such as the one that was brought into
Visalia’s Kaweah Delta Hospital.
As of 4:30 p.m. Tuesday, Sierra View Medical Center reported it has had 174 positive COVID-19 tests. Sierra View has had 23 deaths due to COVID-19.
Sierra View now has 14 employees who have now tested positive for COVID-19 and 15 employees who have recovered after testing positive for COVID-19.
As far as its capacity, Sierra View reported it had 20 COVID-19 hospitalizations. There were five of 10 ICU beds and three of 16 available ventilators in use at Sierra View.
As far as hospitalizations in the county, Lutz said the number of COVID-19 hospitalizations in the county has fluctuated between 70 and 90, which is still enough to affect overall capacity. He did say COVID-19 hospitalizations decreased by 2.3 percent from the previous week.
And he added that number is helped by the number of COVID-19 patients being transferred to the Porterville Alternate Care Site at Por
terville Developmental Center.
As of Tuesday morning, Lutz reported 36 patients have been transferred to the site and 17 were currently at the site. He added the site has a capacity of 50 and that capacity can be expanded to 150.
Lutz also reported on elementary schools being able to apply for a waiver to open for in-person learning for the new school year.
On Friday, Gavin Newsom issued a mandate school campuses couldn’t open in counties on the state watch list, including Tulare County, and the county health department issued a statement it would go along with the mandate.
But elementary schools in counties on the watch list can apply for a waiver to open, which is especially important for small, rural schools in the county. Lutz, though, said there’s still a “lack of clarity of what the process is going to entail.”
As far as when schools and other businesses that have been shut down can reopen, Lutz said the county is making progress but still has a long ways to go. For schools and business that have been shut down to reopen, the county must come off the state watch list for 14 straight days and it will obviously take the county a long time to accomplish that.
Lutz said for the county to be removed from the state watch list it must reduce its rate of new cases by 75 percent or reduce its positive test rate by one-third.
But with criteria reestablished calling which calls for tests to be prioritized for higher risk individuals when it comes to COVID, Supervisor Dennis Townsend made a good point about that possibly causing an increase in the positivity rate. “We might see a bump,” Lutz said.
As far as the county’s positive test rate, the previous week’s rate was revised down from 13.9 percent to 12.1 percent. Last week’s rate was 12.8 percent and should eventually be revised down as well. For the county to meet the state’s standard it must reduce its rate to 8 percent.
As far as the county’s R number which projects how fast the virus will spread, the county’s number has remained the same at 1.07. That number represents the average number of people an infected person would infect.
That number also effectively means the county’s increase of cases will continue at its current rate. Fresno and Kings Counties have R numbers that indicate the increase of cases will continue to rise.
Kings County’s R number is extremely high at 1.19 and Fresno County’s number is at 1.12. Kern County’s number is 1.06. California’s R number is 1.08.
Tulare County saw an increase of 224 cases on Tuesday, which was caused in part by the fact cases over the weekend were finished processing on Tuesday. Tulare County has now had 7,120 COVID-19 cases.
The number increased by 14.17 percent over the 6,209 that was reported last week. That’s an increase of 2.25 percent over the previous week.
But when it comes to the rate per 100,000 over a two-week period, that rate has decreased by 10.5 percent from 427 per 100,000 to 393.1 per 100,000. But again that rate will need to be reduced substantially for the county to meet the state standard.
Lutz also reported one more death on Tulare County, bringing the total of deaths due to COVID-19 to 168. He added there have been 15 COVID-19 deaths in the county in the last week. The state model projects Tulare County to have 298 deaths by August 20.
The number of people in Tulare County who have recovered after testing positive for COVID-19 has remained unchanged at 3,821. The number active cases in Tulare County has r
Lutz said the measures the county is taking “shows some signs of stabilizing” the virus. “It’s a positive sign. “However we still have a lot of work to get of the monitoring list,” added Lutz about the state watch list.
Lutz also reported on Newsom’s announcement, allowing hair salons, nail salons and barbers to provide outdoor services in counties on the state watch list, including Tulare County. Other services that can be offered outdoors include massage but services such as electrolysis, piercing and tattooing are still not allowed — indoors or outdoors.
BY THE NUMBERS
There have been 68 cases reported as travelrelated, 2,322 cases due to person-to-person contact and 4,730 cases are under investigation.
There have been 847 cases ages 0-17, 1,117 cases ages 18-25, 1,983 cases ages 26-40, 2,230 cases ages 41-64 and 940 cases ages 65 and older.
There have been 3,437 cases who have been Hispanic, 703 have been Caucasian, 106 have been Asian, 29 have been African-american, 11 have been Native American, 69 have been multi-race and 2,765 are unknown.
Another encouraging sign is the county’s doubling time — the amount of days it would tak for cases to double — continues to increase, indicating the curve of cases is beginning to flatten again. As of Monday, the county’s doubling time was 27.8 days.
With a population of about 470,000 people, Tulare County’s overall rate of COVID-19 cases is about 1.46 per 100 or 1.46 percent.