Virus: active cases continue to decline

The number of active COVID-19 cases in Tulare County continues to decline.

After a significant decrease in active cases was reported on Wednesday, another decline was reported on Thursday by Tulare County Health and Human Services. There are now 667 people in Tulare County who have COVID-19, a decrease of 46 from the previous day.

The department did report five more deaths on Thursday, bringing the total number of deaths in Tulare County due to COVID-19 to 229. The department has reported 13 deaths over the last two days.

Despite the increase in reported deaths over the past two days, the state model’s projection for deaths in Tulare County has remained relatively stable. The state model projects Tulare County to have 262 deaths by September 26.

Tulare County’s R number which projects how fast the virus will spread also remained the same at .82, indicating the rate of increase of cases is “likely decreasing” from its current rate. The number .82 also represents the average number of people expected to be infected by one infected person.

The decrease in active cases continues to be caused by an increase in recoveries. There are now 12,879 people in Tulare County who have recovered after testing positive for COVD19, an increase of 143 over the previous day.

The department reported 102 more cases on Thursday, bringing the total number of people who have had COVID-19 in Tulare County to 13,775.

Another encouraging development is the county’s data on cases per 100,000 over the last 14 days. On Thursday, the county reported that number was 401.7 per 100,000, a significant decrease over the last couple of days and a decrease of 21.2 over the previous day.

That number still needs to come down to 200 per 100,000 for schools in Tulare County seeking a waiver to open for in-person instruction for grades TK-6 to be able to reopen.

The county also continued to report a decline in hospitalizations, reporting there are 51 COVID-19 hospitalizations in Tulare County.

As of Thursday, Sierra View Medical Center reported it had 12 COVID-19 hospitalizations and two patients suspected of having COVID-19. Sierra View has had 38 deaths due to COVID-19.

The hospital reported it has three employees who have tested positive for COVID-19 and 37 employees who have recovered. The hospital also reported it has had 285 positive tests.

Sierra View reported eight of its 10 ICU beds were in use and seven of its 19 ventilators were in use.

As of Tuesday, Visalia’s Kaweah Delta Hospital reported it had 38 COVID-19 hospitalizations. Kaweah Delta reported it had 57 employees who have tested positive for COVID-19 and 285 employees who have recovered.

The hospital reported 10 of its 58 ventilators were in use. Kaweah Delta also reported it has had a total of 3,619 positive tests.

There are 592 confirmed COVID-19 nursing home cases in Tulare County.

There have been 2,175 cases in the Porterville area, 138 cases in Terra Bella, 188 cases in Strathmore, 598 cases in Lindsay, 37 cases in foothill-mountain communities, 2,082 cases in Tulare, 1,571 cases in Dinuba, 122 cases in Richgrove, 28 cases in Alpaugh, 265 cases in Pixley, 82 cases in Tipton, 388 cases in Farmersville, 267 cases in Exeter, 240 cases in Woodlake, 283 cases in Cutler, 517 cases in Orosi, 39 cases in Goshen, 75 cases in Traver, 11 cases in the Reedley area, and 11 cases in Orange Cove.

In Visalia there are 1,716 cases in one region, 963 cases in another region and 1,126 cases in a third region.

There have been 68 cases reported as travel-related, 4,487 cases due to personto-person contact and 9,220 cases are under investigation.

There have been 1,857 cases ages 0-17, 2,182 cases ages 18-25, 3,966 cases ages 26-40, 4,299 cases ages 4164 and 1,463 cases ages 65 and older.

There have been 7,727 cases who have been Hispanic, 1,300 have been Caucasian, 219 have been Asian, 53 have been African-american, 28 have been Native American, 246 have been multi-race and 4,202 are unknown.

There are 459 people in Tulare County in self-quarantine being monitored by public health officials.

Another encouraging sign is Tulare County’s doubling time — the amount of time it would take for cases to double — continues to increase, indicating a flattening of the curve of cases. As of Wednesday, Tulare County’s doubling time was 80.8 days.

With a population of about 470,000 people, Tulare County has had an overall rate of about 2.92 cases per 100 residents or 2.92 percent.