Valley’s ICU availability down to 1.9 percent FDA approves emergency use of vaccine

As of Thursday Tulare County Health and Human Services reported the availability of ICU beds in the San Joaquin Valley was down to 1.9 percent.

The San Joaquin Valley’s ICU availability is used to determine when the stay-at-home order will be lifted for the entire region.

The stay-at-home order that was issued late Sunday night can’t be lifted until December 27 at the earliest. When the state projects the availability of ICU beds in the Valley is again above 15 percent, then the stay-athome order can eventually be lifted.

On Wednesday, Visalia’s Kaweah Delta Hospital reported it was operating beyond its capacity, stating it was operating at 105 percent of capacity with patients in the emergency department waiting for beds. On Wednesday Kaweah Delta reported it had 107 COVID-19 patients and 14 COVID-19 patients in ICU. Kaweah Delta reported it had five ICU beds available, but only enough staffing to operate three of those ICU beds.

As of Thursday, Sierra View Medical Center reported six of its 10 ICU beds were in use. Sierra View reported it had 29 COVID-19 patents and 5 patients suspected of having COVID-19.

Sierra View reported six of its 25 ventilators were in use. Sierra View has had 66 deaths due to COVID-19.

Sierra View reported two employees who are hospitalized due to COVID-19.

Sierra View reported it has 16 employees who have now tested positive for COVID-19 and 83 employees who have recovered after testing positive for COVID-19. Sierra View has had a total of 591 positive tests.

As far as the R number that measures the spread of the virus, Tulare County’s number continues to be in the “likely increasing rapidly” category and is now up to 1.42. The number 1.42 represents the average number of people who would be infected by one infected person. The state’s R number is 1.2.

When the stay-at-home order is eventually lifted, Tulare County will return to the most restrictive tier, the purple tier. And as far as moving into the next least restrictive tier, the red tier, is concerned, Tulare County continues to move further away from doing that.

Tulare County’s official case rate which now stands at 36.7 per 100,000 residents over a 7-day period should continue to rise. On Thursday, Tulare County Health and Human Services reported the county’s unofficial, preliminary case rate rose by 10.8 to 55.2 per 100,000.

Tulare County must reduce that rate to 7 per 100,000 to move into the red tier. Tulare County is also in the purple tier when it comes to its overall positive test rate and its equity metric positive test rate for its most disadvantaged areas.

Tulare County’s positive test rate is 12.4 percent and its equity metric test rate is 15 percent. The county must reduce both those numbers to 8 percent before it can move into the red tier.

The health department reported another huge increase in the number of active cases in Tulare County, reporting that number increased by 274 on Thursday. There are now 4,003 people in Tulare County who have COVID-19.

The number of overall cases in Tulare County rose by 385. Since March 11 there have been 24,624 cases in Tulare County.

The number of recoveries increased by 108. There are now 20,295 people in Tulare County who have recovered after testing positive for COVID-19.

The health department also reported three more deaths due to COVID-19, bringing the total to 326 in Tulare County. The county has data on 317 deaths of which 245 were 65 and older, 68 were ages 0-17 and four were under the age of 41.

There have been 122 deaths related to nursing homes and 195 deaths not related to nursing homes. The state model projects Tulare County to have 369 deaths by January 9.

Since March 11 there have been 4,496 cases in the Porterville area, 286 cases in Terra Bella, 339 cases in Strathmore, 868 cases in Lindsay, 103 cases in foothill-mountain communities, 4,109 cases in Tulare, 2,419 cases in Dinuba, 418 cases in Pixley, 165 cases in Tipton, 184 cases in Richgrove, 951 cases in Earlimart, 681 cases in Farmersville, 547 cases in Exeter, 419 cases in Woodlake, 135 cases in Traver, 450 cases in Cutler, 820 cases in Orosi, 52 cases in Goshen, 23 cases in the Reedley area and 11 cases in Orange Cove.

In Visalia there have been 2,776 cases in one region, 1,708 case in another region and 2,110 cases in a third region.

There have been 3,476 cases ages 0-17, 3,874 cases ages 18-25, 7,128 cases ages 26-40, 7,599 cases ages 41-64 and 2,534 cases ages 65 and older.

There have been 13,874 cases who have been Hispanic, 2,766 have been Caucasian, 459 have been Asian, 138 have been African American, 105 have been Native American, 576 have been multirace and 6,706 are unknown.

There are 445 people in Tulare County under self-quarantine being monitored by public health officials.

With a population of nearly 470,000 people, Tulare County has had a rate of 5.3 cases per 100 residents or 5.3 percent.

FDA APPROVES VACCINE

THE FDA approved the emergency use of the Pfizer vaccine on Thursday, clearing the way for the first doses of the vaccine to be deliver to Tulare County on Monday or Tuesday.

The initial allocation will be 2,975 doses for Tulare County of which Sierra View Medical Center is set to receive one case or less than 1,000 doses. Each person needs to take two doses, so the doses Sierra View is receiving would be enough for less than 500 people.

Frontline health care workers are to be the first ones to receive the vaccine. Tulare County Health and Human Services Director Tim Lutz said a person would need to take the second dose roughly two weeks after the first.