County trend continues to head in right direction

The trend continues to head in the right direction as far as the status of COVID-19 in Tulare County is concerned.

Tulare County Health and Human Services reported the county’s case rate continued to drop over the weekend. Tulare County’s preliminary, unofficial case rate dropped to 44.9 per 100,000 residents over a 7-day period, a decline of 6.9 from the previous number reported.

Tulare County is now in the most restrictive tier, the purple tier. For the county to move into the next least restrictive tier, the red tier, it must reduce its case rate to 7 per 100,000.

The health department did report 10 more deaths over the weekend, bringing the number of deaths in Tulare County due to COVID-19 to 598. Tulare County has data on 531 deaths of which 416 were ages 65 and older, 104 were ages 41-64 and 11 were under the age of 41.

There have been 165 deaths related to nursing homes and 366 deaths not related to nursing homes. Sierra View Medical Center has had 129 deaths due to COVID-19.

There was also a significant drop in the number of active cases in Tulare County over the weekend. The number of active cases dropped by 309 since the previous number reported. There are now 3,118 people in Tulare County who have tested positive for COVID-19.

The drop in the number of active cases was caused by a huge increase in the number of recoveries. The number of recoveries increased by 1,024 over the weekend. There are now 41,527 people in Tulare County who have recovered after testing positive for COVID-19.

The positive sign of Tulare County’s R number, which measures the rate of the virus, dropping has continued. The county’s R number is now down to .79 as the county continues to be in the “likely decreasing” category.

That means the increased rate of the virus is expected to continue at a lower level than its current rate. The number .79 represents the average number of people one infected person would infect.

The number of overall cases in Tulare County increased by 725 over the weekend. Since March 11 there have been 45,243 cases in Tulare County.

In its latest update as of early Monday afternoon, the health department reported there has been 8,887 cases in the Porterville area, 38 cases in foothill-mountain communities, 637 cases in Terra Bella, 125 cases in Springville, 584 cases in Strathmore, 1,671 cases in Lindsay, 303 cases in Richgrove, 721 cases in Pixley, 328 cases in Tipton, 72 cases in Alpaugh, 1,314 cases in Earlimart, 7,843 cases in Tulare, 3,844 cases in Dinuba, 1,087 cases in Farmersville, 943 cases in Exeter, 47 cases in Three Rivers, 821 cases in Woodlake, 692 cases in Cutler, 1,306 cases in Orosi, 85 cases in Goshen, 227 cases in Traver, 50 cases in the Reedley area, 18 cases in Orange Cove and 464 cases in Ivanhoe.

In Visalia there have been 4,911 cases in one region, 3,197 cases in another region and 3,873 cases in a third region.

There have been 6,672 cases ages 0-17, 7,051 cases ages 18-25, 12,757 cases ages 26-40, 14,051 cases agers 41-64 and 4,686 cases ages 65 and older.

There have been 24,848 cases who have been Hispanic, 6,100 have been Caucasian, 889 have been Asian, 316 have been African American, 281 have been

Native American, 1,497 have been multi-race and 11,330 are unknown.

There are 403 people in Tulare County under self-quarantine being monitored by public health officials.

On Monday, Sierra View reported it had 26 COVID-19 patients and five patients suspected of having COVID-19. Sierra View reported nine of its ICU beds were in use. Sierra View reported 10 of its 25 ventilators were in use.

Sierra View reported it how has eight employees who have tested positive for COVID-19, including six who are hospitalized. There have been 157 employees who have recovered after testing positive for COVID-19. Sierra View has had a total of 1,019 positive tests.

With a population of about 470,000 people, Tulare County has had a rate of 9.5 cases per 100 residents or 9.5 percent.