COVID cases down, but ICU availability at 0%

While the situation still remains tough, there were encouraging developments on Friday as far as the status of COVID-19 in Tulare County is concerned with a huge increase in recoveries that led to a large decline in active cases.

There was no improvement in ICU availability, though, for the San Joaquin Valley as the entire region was considered to be a zero percent availability. Some regions of the Valley have more ICU patients than ICU beds available which has led to the state reporting on Friday the region has zero percent availability.

On Friday Tulare County Health and Human Services reported the county had six ICU beds available and the county’s ICU availability was 13 percent.

A stay-at-home order is in effect for the Valley and will remain in effect at least through December 27. In order for the stay-at-home order to be lifted ICU availability for the entire Valley must return to at least 15 percent.

There was an increase of 634 in recoveries on Friday. There are now 22,553 people in Tulare County who have recovered after testing positive for COVID-19.

The huge increase in recoveries led to a significant decrease in active cases as the number of active cases declined by 301. There are now 5,224 people in Tulare County who have tested positive for COVID-19.

The number of deaths, though, continues to increase at a significant rate. For the second straight day on Friday, the health department reported seven more deaths in Tulare County. There have now been 353 deaths due to COVID-19 in Tulare County.

The county has data on 327 deaths of which 252 were 65 and older, 69 were ages 41-64 and four were under the age of 41. There have been 123 deaths related to nursing homes and 204 deaths not related to nursing homes.

Sierra View has had 72 deaths due to COVID-19. As of Friday Sierra View had 40 COVID-19 patients and seven patients suspected of having COVID-19.

Sierra View reported seven of its 10 ICU beds were in use and nine of its 25 ventilators were in use. Sierra View now has 18 employees who have tested positive for COVID-19, including four who have been hospitalized.

There have been 98 employees who have recovered after testing positive for COVID-19. Sierra View has had a total of 650 positive tests.

Once the stay-athome order is lifted, Tulare County will return to the most restrictive tier, the purple tier.

While Tulare County continues to move further away from moving into the next least restrictive tier, the red tier, that movement wasn’t as bad on Friday. The health department reported Tulare County’s preliminary, unofficial rate is 83.1 cases per 100,000 residents over a 7-day period, an increase of 1.3 over the previous day. For Tulare County to move into the red tier it must reduce that number to 7 per 100,000.

There was no movement in Tulare County’s R number which measures the rate of the spread of the virus. Tulare County’s R number is 1.39, indicating it’s still in the “likely increasing rapidly” category.

The state’s R number is 1.19. The number 1.39 represents the average number of people would would be infected by one infected person.

The number of overall cases in Tulare County increased by 340 on Friday. Since March 11 there have been 28,130 cases in Tulare County.

Since March 11 there have been 5,239 cases in the Porterville area, 350 cases in Terra Bella, 371 cases in Strathmore, 989 cases in Lindsay, 60 cases in Springville, 60 cases in foothill-mountain communities, 4,813 cases in Tulare, 2,683 cases in Dinuba, 204 cases in Richgrove, 56 cases in Alpaugh, 489 cases in Pixley, 191 cases in Tipton, 978 cases in Earlimart, 28 cases in Three Rivers, 739 cases in Farmersville, 618 cases in Exeter, 483 cases in Woodlake, 476 cases in Cutler, 900 cases in Orosi, 59 cases in Goshen, 157 cases in Traver, 27 cases in the Reedley area and 11 cases in Orange Cove.

In Visalia there have been 3,167 cases in one region, 1,991 cases in another region and 2,431 cases in a third region.

There have been 3,995 cases ages 0-17, 4,424 cases ages 18-25, 8,111 cases ages 26-40, 8,693 cases ages 41-64 and 2,893 cases ages 65 and older.

There have been 15,814 cases who have been Hispanic, 3,374 have been Caucasian, 533 have been Asian, 168 have been African American, 133 have been Native American, 735 have been multirace and 7,373 are unknown.

There are 496 people in Tulare County under self-quarantine being monitored by public health officials.

With a population of about 470,000 people, Tulare County has had a rate of 5.9 cases per 100 residents or 5.9 percent.