‘Some positive news:’ County metrics heading in right direction Tiered system, school waivers and day camps also covered
“Some positive news.” That’s what Tulare County Health and Human Services Director Tim Lutz said he was glad to report during his weekly report on the status of COVID-19 in the county at the Tulare County Board of Supervisors meeting.
Lutz reported some numbers which were the best they had been in weeks, but also stressed the county needs to remain diligent. He also gave an update on the waiver process for schools to potentially offer in-person instruction to grades TK-6 and on how day camps were being operated.
He also stated the state is planning to change its monitoring list in the near future in which it will basically use a tiered system in an effort to provide more local flexibility when it comes to sectors counties in the state can open.
Lutz reported as of Tuesday morning the total number of people who have had COVID-19 in Tulare County was at 13,609. That was an increase of 891 over the previous week.
That represented a seven percent increase which is the lowest percentage increase the county has had in weeks. The number of total cases also increased by 178 over the previous day.
But there was also a significant increase in the number of recoveries. The number of people in Tulare County who have recovered after testing positive for COVID-19 is now at 12,502, an increase of 220 over the previous day.
So the number of active cases in Tulare County also decreased by 42 from the previous day. There are now 891 people in Tulare County who have COVID-19.
Lutz said the county has seen its lowest case growth rate in about five weeks. The number of cases over a 14-day period still remains high as measured by the county at 535.2 per 100,000.
That’s still well above the 200 per 100,000 the county would need to meet for waivers to be granted for schools to begin in-person instruction in grades TK-6.
But the county’s R number which projects how fast the virus will spread continues to remain much lower than it has been at .82. That represents a projected decrease growth in cases, Lutz said. That number also represents the average number of people one infected person is expected to infect.
As far as waivers, Lutz said schools should be applying for a waiver even if they are operating day camps. “They really should be going through the waiver process,” Lutz said.
As of Tuesday morning, Lutz said eight schools had applied for waivers, with the majority of them being private schools. He added there are two schools in Tulare County operating day camps with three in the stages of development as of Tuesday morning.
He said the county will be providing condition
al approval of waivers to schools for when the county meets the criteria allowing them to open so they can open as soon as possible.
As far as day camps, no more than 14 children can be grouped together and they’re not allowed to be with any other groups of children.
Those who operate day camps can’t exceed 25 percent of their normal enrollment or 25 percent of their buildings’ capacity.
Lutz also noted the county’s positivity test rate has come down from 14.3 percent to 11.6 percent but is still above the state threshold of eight percent.
And he added there’s still an issue of large gatherings in the county which is still a “significant source of community spread” of the virus.
He also said about the virus: “The moment we let our guard down a bit and think we’re ahead it really rears its ugly head.”
Tulare County is currently on the state monitoring list which significantly limits what sectors can be open. Lutz said the state plans to switch to a tiered system which will use four tiers — red, orange, yellow and green to measure how counties are meeting state criteria.
Green would represent the best rating with yellow the second best rating, orange representing more of a problem area and red representing the worst rating.
It’s hoped the tiered system will give counties more flexibility in closing sectors that are more of a cause of the spread of the virus, but opening sectors in which the spread has been minimal.
But Lutz said the tiered system would require sectors to meet criteria for 21 days for them to open. But he added the standard of 14 straight days for a county to meet certain criteria for waivers to be granted for schools to provide in-person instruction to grades TK-6 would remain in effect. He also said he didn’t know when the tiered system would be put into place.
Lutz reported no new deaths on Tuesday, leaving the total number of deaths in Tulare County due to COVID-19 at 216. There have been 10 deaths reported in Tulare County over the last week
The state model is again projecting a significant decrease in the number of deaths in Tulare County. The state is now projecting 257 deaths by September 24, 100 less than the 357 it previously projected.
Lutz also said the number of COVID-19 hospitalizations in Tulare County continues to decline and is now down to 56, which is the lowest it’s been since late June.
That number should continue to go down based on reports from Sierra View Medical Center and Visalia’s Kaweah Delta Hospital. As of Monday, Kaweah Delta reported it has 36 COVID-19 hospitalizations.
Kaweah Delta reported it has 67 employees who have tested positive for COVID-19 and 255 employees who have recovered.
The hospital reported 10 of its 61 ventilators were in use. The hospital also reported it has had a total of 3,597 positive tests.
As of Tuesday, Sierra View reported it has 13 COVID-19 hospitalizations, and three patients suspected of having COVID-19. Sierra View has had 38 deaths due to COVID-19.
Sierra View reported seven of its 10 ICU beds were in use and four of its 19 ventilators were in use. The hospital also reported it has three employees who have tested positive for COVID-19 and 37 employees who have recovered. The hospital reported it has had a total of 280 positive tests.
Lutz also reported the number of patients at the Porterville Alternate Care Site at the Porterville Developmental Center is down to 7.
Lutz reported the county has spent nearly $4.9 million in its COVID-19 response.
SMALL BUSINESS GRANTS
Adam Peck of the Workforce Investment Board which is administering grants being allocated to business affected by COVID-19 also presented a report on the program on Tuesday.
The board approved a total of $7.5 million in grants from the CARES Act to be allocated to small businesses. Three-hundred businesses in each of the five districts in the county were set to receive $5,000 grants.
But it was originally recommended $5 million be set aside for the program and it looks like that’s how much will be allocated.
A total of 1,199 applications were considered to be eligible and a total of 972 applications have been approved or were being processed as of Tuesday morning.
As of Tuesday morning, 657 grants totaling $3.285 million were allocated with the breakdown as follows: District 1 — 133 businesses receiving $665,000; District 2 – 72, $360,000; District 3 — 292, $1.46 million; District 4 — 93, $465,000; District 5 — 67, $335,000.
The deadline to apply for the grants was Monday.
BY THE NUMBERS
There are 590 confirmed COVID-19 nursing home cases in Tulare County.
There have been 2,154 cases in the Porterville area, 137 cases in Terra Bella, 181 cases in Strathmore, 588 cases in Lindsay, 36 cases in foothillmountain communities, 121 cases in Richgrove, 574 cases in Earlimart, 264 cases in Pixley, 82 cases in Tipton, 2,063 cases in Tulare, 1,564 cases in Dinuba, 41 cases in Goshen, 75 cases in Traver, 226 cases in Woodlake, 286 cases in Cutler, 510 cases in Orosi, 11 cases in the Reedley area, 11 cases in Orange Cove, 261 cases in Exeter, 378 cases in Farmersville and 145 cases in Ivanhoe.
In Visalia there have been 1,681 cases in one region, 951 cases in another region and 1,116 cases in a third region.
There have been 68 cases reported as travelrelated, 4,402 cases due to person-to-person contact and 9,139 cases are under investigation.
There have been 1,823 cases ages 0-17, 2,152 cases ages 18-25, 3,927 cases ages 26-40, 4,257 cases ages 41-64 and 1,439 cases ages 65 and older.
There have been 7,544 cases who have been Hispanic, 1,274 have been Caucasian, 209 have been Asian, 51 have been African-american, 25 have been Native American, 241 have been multi-race and 4,265 are unknown.
There are 434 people in Tulare County who are under self-quarantine and being monitored by public health officials.
Tulare County’s doubling time — the amount of days it would take for cases to double — remains relatively high, indicating a flattening of the curve. As of Monday Tulare County’s doubling time was 70.9 days.
With a population of about 470,000 people, Tulare County’s overall rate is a little more than 2.83 cases per 100 residents or 2.83 percent.