By the numbers: Coronavirus in the San Joaquin Valley
Updated 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, April 21.
With four new deaths reported Tuesday, Tulare County’s death toll from coronavirus disease has climbed to 22. And while some California counties have far more deaths, this largely rural county now has the third-highest per-capita rate of deaths from COVID-19 among the state’s 58 counties.
The county’s death rate from the disease amounts to about 4.6 fatalities for every 100,000 residents. That’s more than three times higher than any other county in the central San Joaquin Valley. It’s also the third-highest in the entire state behind Mono County, where a small population and just one death mathematically works out to a rate of 7.2 deaths per 100,000, and Los Angeles County, where the rate is about 6.5 per 100,000.
The past few days have seen a slowdown in the number of new cases reported each day in the Valley, compared to last week when some of the largest increases were reported by counties since the global pandemic reached the region less than two months ago. The rolling seven-day average of daily new cases reported from April 15-21 was 42.9. That rolling average had ranged between 46 and 50 cases every day since April 14.
Those high averages were fueled by four straight days last week with high case counts: 64 on April 13, 66 on April 14, 75 on April 15 – the single highest day for new cases since the outbreak struck the Valley –and 58 on April 16.
To date, Mariposa County is the only county in Central California without any reported coronavirus disease patients, and one of only five counties statewide where no positive cases have been confirmed.
The number of positive tests showing people infected with the coronavirus in Tulare County places the county at an infection rate of almost 91 cases per 100,000 residents. By comparison, the next highest rate of confimed infections in the region is 36.3 cases per 100,000 residents in neighboring Fresno County. The statewide rate as of Tuesday is just over 89 cases per 100,000 residents.
Recovery rate
On the other side of the rise in cases and deaths are a growing number of people who came down with the virus and have since recovered – that is, people who self-quarantined after testing positive for the virus and have now been declared cleared, either by testing negative for the virus remaining in their system or showing no symptoms for a specified period of time. As of Tuesday, the number of patients deemed recovered was 245 – about one out of every four COVID-19 patients in the region.
Among Valley counties that are offering more detailed demographic breakdowns of cases, female patients outnumber males with coronavirus disease in Merced counties, while more slightly men than women in Fresno County have the virus. Madera County cases are so far equally divided between men and women.
Children in the Valley are catching COVID-19 at a rate that’s more than double the state and the nation, based on figures from Fresno, Merced and Tulare counties. About 4.3% of coronavirus disease patients in the Valley are among children ages 17 and under. Kings County is so far not reporting age ranges for its cases, and Madera County does not distinguish children from among its patients under the age of 25.
The percentage of senior citizens in the Valley who have contracted the contagion as of Thursday is also higher than across the state and nation, albeit only slightly. About one out of four COVID-19 patients in Fresno, Madera, Merced and Tulare counties is over the age of 65. In Tulare County, at least two nursing homes – one in Visalia, another in Lindsay – have reported outbreaks of COVID-19 among their patients.
An analysis of the virus’ spread by the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington indicated that California reached its peak of demand for hospital resources, including ventilators and intensive care unit beds, last week, and likely topped out with a highest number of daily deaths on Thursday. But the analysis also projects that California’s total deaths won’t reach a maximum until mid-May.
Dr. Rais Vohra, Fresno County’s interim health officer, has said he expects that Fresno County and the surrounding region likely won’t see a peak in COVID-19 cases until this week or next, based on what’s happened with faster and earlier rates of spread in more urban parts of California.
For more than a month, residents in California and the Valley have been encouraged to heed sweeping state and local mandates for social distancing, eschewing large public gatherings, sheltering at and working from home when possible, and maintaining at least 6 feet of separation from others when outside the home. Those measures are aimed at breaking what Vohra and other medical experts call the “chain of transmission” from one person to another through tiny droplets spread by breathing, talking, sneezing and coughing – even spread unwittingly by people who show no symptoms of the disease but may be infected.
In Valley counties, 168 cases are attributed to “community spread,” meaning that health officials cannot precisely trace a person’s source of infection. Another 477 cases have been blamed on close person-to-person contact with someone who has the virus, including almost 300 of Tulare County’s cases.
Some of the earliest known cases of COVID-19 reported in the Valley were blamed on travel-related causes, including passengers aboard Princess Cruises ships where some of the first patients in California caught the infection. In Merced County, health officials there are distinguishing cases that are believed to have been spread through healthcare facilities. Dozens of cases in the region remain under investigation for the source of transmission.
This story was originally published April 17, 2020 at 5:52 PM with the headline "By the numbers: Coronavirus in the San Joaquin Valley."
