Recoveries continue to increase in county

Active cases continue to decline

In a continuing sign Tulare County may have reached a turning point leading to a turnaround when it comes to the COVID-19 pandemic, active cases in Tulare County continue to decrease.

While the nation’s top two doctors concerning the battle against the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Deborah Birx and Dr. Anthony Fauci, expressed concern this week about what’s been happening in the Central Valley, Tulare County Health and Human Services reported encouraging data for the second straight day.

For the second straight day, the number of recoveries outpaced the number of new cases reported on Friday. There have now been 9,287 people in Tulare County who have recovered after testing positive for COVID-19, an increase of 283 over the previous day.

The number of total cases that have been reported in Tulare County was at 10,475 on Friday, an increase of 141 over the previous day.

So the number of active cases continued to decrease, now below 1,000 at 992, a decrease of 142 from the previous day.

Tulare County’s R number remained at 1, which indicates one infected person is expected to infect one other person on average. The number also indicates Tulare County’s rate of increase of cases is expected to continue at its current rate of increase.

The department also reported no new deaths, leaving the total of deaths in Tulare County due to COVID-19 to 196.

The state projection for the number of deaths for Tulare County also continues to decline. Once above 400, the

state is now projecting Tulare County to have 272 deaths by September 6.

Another encouraging number reported was the number of hospitalizations in Tulare County due to COVID-19 also declined. The department reported as of Wednesday, the number of COVID-19 hospitalizations was still a troubling high 104, but that was a decrease of 14 from the previous day.

The availability of ICU beds in the county also increased, although still lower than the state target. The availability of ICU beds in Tulare County fell close to 5 percent, but is now back up to 13.5 percent. The state target is 20 percent.

As of Thursday, Kaweah Delta Medical Center reported its number of COVID-19 hospitalizations remained about the same at 75. Kaweah Delta reported it now has 93 employees who have tested positive for COVID-19 and 189 employees who have recovered.

The hospital reported five of its 52 ventilators were in use. The hospital also reported it has had 3,113 positive tests.

As of Thursday, Sierra View Medical Center reported it has 21 COVID-19 hospitalizations and three patients suspected of having COVID-19. Sierra View reported five of its 10 ICU beds were in use. Last week Sierra View reported eight of its 10 ICU beds were in use.

Sierra View has had 30 deaths due to COVID-19. The hospital reported six of its 23 ventilators were in use.

The hospital now has eight employees who have tested positive for COVID-19 and 31 employees who have recovered. Sierra View reported it has had 234 positive tests.

The number of confirmed COVID-19 nursing home patients is 562.

There have been 1,673 cases in the Porterville area, 89 cases in Terra Bella, 138 cases in Strathmore, 453 cases in Lindsay, 25 cases in foothill-mountain communities, 69 cases in Richgrove, 460 cases in Earlimart, 220 cases in Pixley, 53 casesin Tipton, 1,531 cases in Tulare, 1,217 cases in Dinuba, 195 cases in Exeter, 132 cases in Woodlake, 419 cases in Orosi, 36 cases in Goshen, 53 cases in Traver, 69 cases in Cutler, 11 cases in the Reedley area, 11 cases in Orange Cove, 306 cases in Farmersville and 117 cases in Ivanhoe.

In Visalia there has been 1,304 cases in one region, 756 cases in another region and 843 cases in a third region.

There have been 68 cases reported as travel-related, 3,587 cases due to personto-person contact and 6,820 cases are under investigation.

There have been 1,344 cases ages 0-17, 1,651 cases ages 18-25, 2,972 cases ages 26-40, 3,294 cases ages 41-64 and 1,205 cases ages 65 and older.

There have been 5,979 cases who have been Hispanic, 1,028 have been Caucasian, 145 have been Asian, 44 have been Africanamerican, 12 have been Native American, 155 have been multirace and 3,112 are unknown.

There are 321 people in Tulare County in self-quarantine who are being monitored by public health officials.

With a population of about 470,000 people, Tulare County has had more than 2.16 cases per 100 residents or 2.16 percent.

Tulare County’s doubling time — the amount of days it would take for cases to double which measures how flat the curve of cases is — remained about the same at 35.4 days.