Action plan should be coming soon for Central Valley
The state should be coming up with an action plan for the Central Valley in the near future when it comes to the effort to battle COVID-19 in the region.
That was what was presented by Tulare County Health and Human Services Director Tim Lutz during his weekly report on the status of COVID-19 at the Tulare County Board of Supervisors meeting on Tuesday.
Various community and county leaders in Tulare County met with the state’s Uniform Support Team last week to discuss what can be done in the county. Lutz said a Uniform Support Team still needs to meet this week with Kings County leaders.
Once those meetings are completed, Lutz said the state will then come up with an action plan for the entire Central Valley on how to deal with COVID-19. Uniform Support Teams from various state agencies were sent to counties throughout Central California, which has been considered a hot spot when it comes to COVID-19.
Lutz said the Uniform
Support Team “did note many strengths in the community response” during its meetings with county leaders when it came to how the county has addressed COVID-19.
One encouraging development is Tulare County’s case rate continues to decline. Lutz reported the county’s case rate is down to 360.4 per 100,000 over the past 14 days.
So the county continues to come closer to the threshold of 200 cases per 100,000 that would allow some schools in Tulare County to open for in-person learning.
The county is currently accepting applications for waivers for schools to open when the threshold is met. The waivers are only for elementary schools for grades TK-6.
Lutz reported Tulare County’s R number was at 1.02. The R number projects how fast the rate of increase of cases will be.
The number 1.02 represents the county’s rate of increase is “likely stable,” meaning the rate is expected to increase at its current rate. The number 1.02 also represents the average number of people one infected person is expected to infect.
But Lutz said he believes the reported case rate is a better indicator of what’s happening than the R number.
Lutz also reported the number of patients at the Porterville Alternative Care Site at Porterville Development Center continues to decline and as of Tuesday was down to 13. A total of 76 patients have been seen at the facility. There have been two deaths due to COVID-19 at the facility.
Despite the low numbers, Lutz said it’s expected the site would remain open. “We’re still hearing that they’re not considering closing it yet,” he said.
Lutz added the site is the only one of its kind in the Valley, so it’s expected it will be one of the last alternate sites in the state to be closed.
Lutz also announced $8.5 million from the Paycheck Protection Program Health Enhancement Act has been allocated to Tulare County through November 17, 2022. But the funding can only be used in areas such as testing and contact tracing.
Supervisor Dennis Townsend addressed the
issue of why the funding couldn’t be used to help farmworkers who can’t work due to a positive test. Lutz said CARES Act funds would be redirected to help farmworkers who have tested positive and can’t work with rental, food and utility assistance.
Lutz said the county has spent $4.621 million in its response to COVID-19.
BY THE NUMBERS
The number of active cases in Tulare County increased slightly on Tuesday. The number of people who now have COVID-19 in Tulare County is 1,309, an increase of 35 over the previous day.
The slight increase in active cases was caused by the fact the number of new cases reported by the county outpaced the number of recoveries by 35.
The county reported there has been a total of 12,718 cases in Tulare County, an increase of 267 over the previous day. The number of people in Tulare County who have recovered after testing positive for COVID-19 increase by 237 to 11,203.
The county reported no new deaths, leaving the total number of deaths due to COVID-19 in Tulare County at 206. The state model, though, has projected a large increase in deaths, back up to 337 by September 17. The state model had projected the number of deaths to be 283.
The county reported the number of COVID-19 hospitalizations in Tulare County remained the same at 68.
And the number of COVID-19 hospitalizations at Visalia’s Kaweah Delta Medical Center continues to decline. As of Monday that number was down to 49.
Kaweah Delta reported it has 72 employees who have tested positive for COVID-19 and 231 employees who have recovered. The hospital reported six of its 57 ventilators were in use. The hospital also reported its total number of positive tests was 3,441.
As of Tuesday, Sierra View Medical Center reported it has 17 COVID-19 hospitalizations and three patients suspected of having COVID-19. There have been 35 deaths due to COVID-19 at Sierra View.
Sierra View reported five of its 10 ICU beds were in use and three of its 19 ventilators were in use.
The hospital reported it has two employees who have tested positive for COVID-19 and 37 employees who have recovered. The hospital also reported it has had a total of 261 positive tests.
The number of confirmed COVID-19 nursing home patients in Tulare County is 578.
There have been 2,035 cases in the Porterville area, 121 cases in Terra Bella, 171 cases in Strathmore, 545 cases in Lindsay, 32 cases in foothill-mountain communities, 113 cases in Richgrove, 549 cases in Earlimart, 260 cases in Pixley, 74 cases in Tipton, 1,901 cases in Tulare, 1,471 cases in Dinuba, 197 cases in Woodlake, 39 cases in Goshen, 68 cases in Traver, 265 cases in Cutler, 485 cases in Orosi, 11 cases in the Reedley area, 11 cases in Orange Cove, 233 cases in Exeter, 357 cases in Farmersville and 140 cases in Ivanhoe.
In Visalia there has been 1,566 cases in one region, 900 cases in another region and 1,019 cases in a third region.
There have been 68 cases reported as travelrelated, 4,117 cases due to person-to-person contact and 8,533 cases under investigation.
There have been 1,711 cases ages 0-17, 2,022 cases ages 18-25, 3,640 cases ages 26-40, 3,961 cases ages 41-64 and 1,375 cases ages 65 and older.
There have been 6,995 cases who have been Hispanic, 1,175 have been Caucasian, 183 have been Asian, 48 have been African-american, 22 have been Native American, 206 have been multi-race and 4,087 have been unknown.
There are 303 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’s total rate has been 2.63 cases per 100 residents or 2.63 percent.
Tulare County’s doubling time — the amount of days it would take for cases to double — continues to inch up, indicating a flattening of the curve of cases. As of Monday Tulare County’s doubling time was 47.7 days.