COVID-19: overall numbers encouraging

The overall COVID-19 numbers reported by Tulare County Health and Human Services on Friday morning were encouraging.

The department reported a lower increase in cases that had been happening in recent days along with a considerable increase in the number of recoveries. The department also reported a slight decline in active cases for the second straight day.

The department, though, did report three more deaths due to COVID-19, brining the total deaths due to COVID-19 in Tulare County to 122.

That’s in line with the state model, which is predicting two-three deaths per day for a total of 193 deaths in Tulare

County by July 26.

There have been 3,705 COVID-19 cases in Tulare County, an increase of 59 over the 3,646 that was reported on Thursday. The department is also releasing COVID-19 cases by ethnicity.

By far the most cases in the county are happening with Hispanics. There have been 2005 cases in Tulare County that are Hispanic.

There have been 435 cases that are Caucasian, 67 have been Asian, 18 have been African American, 11 have been Native American, 31 have been multi-race and 1,138 are unknown.

The department reported there are 771 active cases in Tulare County, down from 791 that was reported on Thursday.

The department reported there have been 2,812 people in Tulare

County who have recovered after testing positive from COVID-19. That’s an increase of 76 over the 2,736 that was reported on Thursday.

There have been 496 cases in the Porterville area. In Visalia, there have been 433 cases in one region, 353 cases in a second region and 340 cases in a third region.

The official tally for Lindsay is 187. There have been 565 cases in Tulare and 530 cases in Dinuba. There have been 130 cases in Earlimart, 157 cases in Richgrove, 37 cases in Strathmore, eight cases in foothill/ mountain communities, 32 cases in Woodlake, 13 cases in Goshen, 20 cases in Traver, 45 cases in Exeter, 11 cases in the Reedley area and 11 cases in Orange Cove.

There have been 55 cases reported as travelrelated, 1,688 cases due to person-to-person contact and 1,962 cases are under investigation.

There have been 421 cases ages 0-17, 525 cases ages 18-25, 916 cases ages 26-40, 1,197 cases ages 41-64 and 646 cases ages 65 and older.

The number of people in Tulare County who are under self-quarantine and being monitored by public health officials remained the same at 985.

The number of hospitalization in Tulare County remained the same at 56. Of those hospitalizations 9 were in intensive care. The number of confirmed nursing home cases also remained the same at 416.

With a population of about 470,000 people, there have been nearly 7.6 cases per 1,000 or .76 percent. Tulare County’s doubling time — the amount of days it would take for cases to double — declined slightly from 20.8 days as of Wednesday to 20.2 days as of Thursday. But that’s still relatively high, showing the curve of cases in the county is remaining relatively flat.

Tulare County’s R-eff value which measures how fast the virus is spreading remained the same at 1.06. A value of .99 means the spread of COVID-19 is stable. Less than .99 means a decrease, more than .99 means an increase. California’s number is 1.07.

As of 5 p.m. Friday, Sierra View Medical Center reported it had 78 confirmed COVID-19 cases, including 14 inpatient COVID-19 cases. Sierra View has had 15 deaths due to COVID-19.

As of Thursday Sierra View has had 2,131 tests conducted while there have been 9,112 tests conducted at the Tulare County testing lab.

STILL MOVING FORWARD

California is among the larger states such as Texas and Florida that is seeing an uptick in cases. But while Texas and Florida are rolling back some of the measures they took to reopen their economies, Govern Gavin Newsom said no such measures will be taken in this state — for now.

But Newsom added one key was continued compliance with the state mandate for everyone to wear masks in public. Newsom said as long as he sees a continued effort to comply with state standards he believes the state can continue to move forward without rolling back the measures it has taken to reopen its economy.