Virus: Active cases continue to go down in county

There was another slight drop in the number of active COVID-19 cases in Tulare County on Thursday.

Tulare County Health and Human Services reported on Thursday the number of active cases declined by 12. There are now 286 people in Tulare County who have tested positive for COVID-19.

Tulare County’s official case rate is at 3.1 per 100,000 over a 7-day period or .0031 percent. Tulare County is now in the orange tier.

For the county to move it the yellow tier it would need to reduce its case to 1 per 100,000. Beginning April 15 large public and private gatherings, concerts, theater performances and live indoor sports events will be allowed with limitations depending on what tier a county is in.

Beginning June 15 the state essentially plans to reopen the economy fully and remove the tiered system. It is expected the tiers would remain for large public and private gatherings, concerts, theater performances and live indoor sports events.

There was also a slight increase in the number of overall cases in Tulare County on Thursday. The health department reported 14 new cases on Thursday. Since March 11, 2020, there have been 49,202 cases in Tulare County.

The state has a different method for measuring cases and deaths for the county than the county. The state has Tulare County at 48,386 cases.

The health department did report three more deaths on Thursday, bringing the total number of deaths in Tulare County due to COVID-19 to 817. The state has Tulare County at 820 deaths.

The county has data on 813 deaths of which 613 were ages 65 and older, 183 were ages 41-64 and 15 were ages 26-40. There have been two deaths under the age of 26, one a young adult and one child has died due to complications with COVID-19.

There have been 193 deaths related to nursing homes and 620 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 has dropped again and is now down to .71. The county has been in the

“likely decreasing” category, meaning the rate of the virus is expected to increase at a lower level than its current rate of increase. The number .71 represents the average number of people who would be infected by one infected person.

The health department reported 23 more recoveries on Thursday. There are now 48,099 people in Tulare County who have recovered after testing positive for COVID-19.

Since March 11, 2020 there have been 9,967 cases in the Porterville area, 43 cases in foothill-mountain communities, 159 cases in Springville, 714 cases in Terra Bella, 620 cases in Strathmore, 1,797 cases in Lindsay, 8,759 cases in Tulare, 4,201 cases in Dinuba, 324 cases in Richgrove, 79 cases in Alpaugh, 784 cases in Pixley, 367 cases in Tipton, 1,453 cases in Earlimart, 1,162 cases in Farmersville, 1,043 cases in Exeter, 52 cases in Three Rivers, 912 cases in Woodlake, 747 cases in Cutler, 1,470 cases in Orosi, 91 cases in Goshen, 269 cases in Traver, 60 case in the Reedley area, 22 cases in Orange Cove and 499 cases in Ivanhoe.

In Visalia there have been 5,379 cases in one region, 3,531 cases in another region and 4,233 cases in a third region.

There have been 7,368 cases who have been ages 0-17, 7,648 cases have been ages 18-25, 13,801 cases have been ages 26-40, 15,261 cases have been ages 41-64 and 5,097 cases have been ages 65 and older.

There have been 27,501 cases who have been Hispanic, 6,894 have been Caucasian, 989 have been Asian, 349 have been African American, 322 have been Native American, 1,628 have been multirace and 11,519 are unknown.

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

Sierra View reported it now has no employees who have tested positive for COVID-19 and all 174 employees who have tested positive for COVID-19 have recovered. Sierra View has had a total of 1,202 positive tests.

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