Surge of cases slows somewhat

After a day that saw COVID-19 cases in Tulare County increase by nearly 500, the rise in cases on Thursday decreased considerably, but was still somewhat high.

Tulare County Health and Human Services reported there has been 7,876 COVID-19 cases in the county, an increase of 173 over the 7,603 that was reported on Wednesday. That total was an increase of 483 over the previous day.

Despite the increase in cases, Tulare County’s R number which projects the rate of spread of the virus continues to fall and is now at 1, still indicating the rate of cases will increase at the current rate. The number 1 means for every infected person, they are expected to infect one other person.

And there was one encouraging sign. For the first time in quite a while, the number of recoveries reached the level of new cases reported. The number of people in Tulare County who have recovered after testing positive for COVID-19 is 4,332, an increase of 176 over Wednesday.

The total number of recoveries in Tulare County over the past two days has increased by an encouraging number of 512.

The number of active cases, though, did increase by 97 from 3,279 to 3,376. And the total number of cases there have been in the Porterville continues to rise and is now at 1,174.

The number of hospitalizations due to COVID-19 also remains troubling as it’s now at 93, which is enough to place a burden on the overall capacity of hospitals.

Another encouraging sign was the department reported no new deaths for the second straight day, leaving the total number of deaths due to COVID-19 in Tulare County at 168. The state model, though, is still projecting an increase in deaths in Tulare County, predicting there will be 352 deaths by August 22.

The number of confirmed cases at nursing homes in Tulare County is 457.

As far as the rest of the county there

have been 339 cases in Lindsay, 86 cases in Strathmore, 69 cases in Terra Bella, 40 cases in Richgrove, 354 cases in Earlimart, 171 cases in Pixley, 32 cases in Tipton, 1147 cases in Tulare, 934 cases in Dinuba, 328 cases in Orosi, 172 cases in Cutler, 206 cases in Farmersville, 151 cases in Exeter, 43 cases in Traver, 77 cases in Woodlake and 17 cases in foothill-mountain communities.

In Visalia there is 1,009 cases in one region, 602 cases in another region and 676 cases in a third region.

There have been 68 cases reported as due to travel, 2,489 cases due to person-to-person contact and 5,319 cases are unknown.

There have been 967 cases ages 0-17, 1,239 cases ages 18-25, 2,187 cases ages 26-40, 2,475 cases ages 41-64 and 1,001 cases ages 65 and older.

There have been 3,824 cases who have been Hispanic, 778 who have been caucasian, 108 who have been Asian, 37 who have been African-american, 11 who have been Native American, 84 who have been multi-race and 3,034 who are unknown.

There are 381 people in Tulare County who are under self-quarantine and being monitored by publich health officials.

As of 4:30 p.m. Wednesday, Sierra View Medical Center also reported its number of hospitalizations due to COVID-19 remained high at 21.

Sierra View reported it has had 177 positive COVID-19 tests. There have been 23 deaths due to COVID-19 at Sierra View.

Sierra View reported it now has 16 employees who have tested positive for COVID-19 and 16 employees who have recovered after testing positive for COVID-19.

Sierra View reported five of its 10 ICU beds were in use and two of its 17 available ventilators were in use.

With a population of about 470,000 people, Tulare County has had a rate of more than 1.5 cases per 100 residents, or 1.5 percent.

The doubling time — the amount of days it would take for cases to double which measures how flat the curve of cases is – remains about the same in Tulare County at 22.9 days.