Tulare County should move into orange tier today

Tulare County should move from the red tier to the next least restrictive tier, the orange tier, when the state announces its official stats for the county today.

Tulare County Health and Human Services reported on Monday the county’s unofficial, preliminary case rate dropped over the weekend to the lowest level it’s been in a long time at 2.9 per 100,000 over a 7-day period or .0029 percent. That’s a drop of .6 from the previous number reported.

That’s well within the standard of 4 per 100,000 needed to move into the orange tier. It’s also expected the state will announce its administered 4 million COVID-19 vaccine doses to its most disadvantaged areas which raises the threshold to move into the orange tier even higher to 6 cases per 100,000.

Once in the orange tier various sectors would be able to expand their indoor operations from 25 percent to 50 percent capacity. Gyms would also be able to expand their indoor operations for 10 percent to 25 percent capacity.

Beginning April 15, counties in red and orange tiers will be able to hold pubic and private large gatherings and indoor events such as concerts, theater performances and live sports. The number of people who can participate in such gatherings and events increases when counties move from the red to orange tier.

Overall the health department reported on Monday the most positive numbers it has reported in some time when it comes to the status of COVID-19 in the county. The health department reported the lowest number of new cases in some time. The department reported 29 new cases on Monday or less than 10 cases per day over the three-day weekend.

The health department also reported a significant drop in active cases. Active cases dropped by 57 over the weekend. There are now 318 people in Tulare County who have tested positive

for COVID-19.

The health department reported recoveries increased by 82 over the weekend. There are now 47,998 people in Tulare County who have recovered after testing positive for COVID-19.

The health department has also gone several days now without reporting another death, leaving the total of deaths due to COVID-19 in Tulare County at 813. The state which has a different standard for measuring cases and deaths has Tulare County at 818 deaths.

The county has data on 809 deaths of which 609 were ages 65 and older, 183 were ages 41-64 and 15 were ages 26-40. The county has had two deaths under the age of 26, one a young adult and one child who died due to complications with COVID-19.

There have been 193 deaths related to nursing homes and 616 deaths not related to nursing homes. Sierra View Medical Center has had 162 deaths due to COVID-19.

Tulare County’s R number which measures the rate of spread of the virus remains stable at .76. The county’s R number has been in the “likely decreasing” category for some time, meaning the rate of increase is expected to be lower than the current rate of increase. The number .76 represents the average number of people who would be infected by one infected person.

The state has Tulare County at 48,343 cases. The county health department has reported since March 11, 2020 there has been 49,129 cases in Tulare County.

There have been 9,952 cases in the Porterville area, 43 cases in foot-hill-mountain communities, 713 cases in Terra Bella, 159 cases in Springville, 620 cases in Strathmore, 1,794 cases in Lindsay, 8,752 cases in Tulare, 4,196 cases in Dinuba, 324 cases in Richgrove, 79 cases in Alpaugh, 784 cases in Pixley, 367 cases in Tipton, 1,453 cases in Earlimart, 1,159 cases in Farmersville, 1,042 cases in Exeter, 52 cases in Three Rivers, 910 cases in Woodlake, 747 cases in Cutler, 1,470 cases in Orosi, 91 cases in Goshen, 268 cases in Traver, 60 cases in the Reedley area, 22 cases in Orange Cove and 497 cases in Ivanhoe.

In Visalia there have been 5,369 cases in one region, 3,527 cases in another region and 4,229 cases in a third region.

There have been 7,353 cases ages 0-17, 7,639 cases ages 18-25, 13,787 cases ages 26-40, 15,236 cases ages 41-64 and 5,087 cases ages 65 and older.

There have been 27,471 cases who have been Hispanic, 6,880 have been Caucasian, 988 have been Asian, 349 have been African American, 322 have been Native American and 1,626 have been multi-race and 11,493 are unknown.

On Monday, Sierra View reported it had one COVID-19 patient and three patients suspected of having COVID-19. Sierra View reported four of its 10 ICU beds were in use. Sierra View reported three of its 19 ventilators were in use.

Sierra View reported it now has one employees who has tested positive for COVID-19. There have been 173 employees who have recovered after testing positive for COVID-19. Sierra View has had a total of 1,201 positive tests.

With a population of about 477,000 people Tulare County has had an overall case rate of 10.3 percent.