Merced County coronavirus cases rise to 94. Officials express caution as recoveries double
Two new Merced County residents were confirmed to have coronavirus Wednesday, raising the tally to 94 total infected, according to County Public Health.
Of those cases, 35 individuals are still sick, 56 have recovered from the disease and three have died.
In California as of Wednesday, there were 37,441 confirmed coronavirus cases and 1,415 deaths.
Los Banos leads Merced County communities with 34 total infected residents. The City of Merced is next with 17 cases. Gustine, Delhi and Atwater each have 7.
County Public Health only releases specific numbers for communities with five or more infected individuals.
Residents may have noticed the number of individuals in the county having recovered from COVID-19 doubled Monday to Tuesday from 28 to 56.
But officials caution not to read into the increase of recoveries too much.
“There is no sudden happening and or reason that (active) cases have decreased,” said County Supervising Epidemiologist Dr. Kristynn Sullivan in an email to the Sun-Star. “This is happenstance, due to a bulk of cases coming in at one time, the same bulk was released at the same time.”
The “bulk” Sullivan referred to is the large number of cases confirmed several weeks ago, when an increasing number of individuals tested positive within a few days. Now, those individuals are recovering around the same time.
“Sometimes there are delays in releasing cases because of the weekend,” Sullivan said.
The number of new individuals testing positive for the disease have slowed lately, too. Since Sunday, only four residents have been confirmed by County Public Health as infected.
The previous week, a total of 13 people in the county tested positive for coronavirus between Sunday and Wednesday.
“Merced County has been doing a great job in social distancing,” Sullivan said. “In addition, our testing capacity is limited due to a lack of supply in testing kits. As the counties have improved in social distancing our numbers of cases per day have dropped.”
“In addition we are constantly exploring options to increase testing capacities,” she added.
According to data from Unacast, Merced County has a C+ grade for social distancing as of Wednesday evening. The state scores a B-, and the nation a C.
In late March, Merced County scored an F for social distancing efforts.
Unacast’s most recent data shows a greater than 70% reduction in non-essential visits in the county, but a less than 25% reduction in average mobility based on distance traveled.
Still, it is difficult to predict when the county will see its peak in COVID-19 cases, officials say. Past County Public Health models estimate social distancing measures intent on “flattening the curve” will cause coronavirus cases and deaths to peak in early to mid June.
“From an epidemiology stand point, it is hard to predict when there will be a surge,” Sullivan said.
Sullivan said county access to ventilators remains the same, and the number of hospital and ICU beds vary based on occupancy and need.
An April 14 update from County Public Health put hospital bed capacity at 224, ICU beds at 24 and ventilators at 31, with about 13 additional ventilators possibly available.
Assuming a 30% reduction is physical contact through preventative social distancing efforts, medical resources still fall short. Projections under these circumstances estimate 526 hospital beds, 203 ICU beds and 150 ventilators would be needed, leaving the county hundreds of items behind, County Public Health reported.
The only Personal Protective Equipment in good supply is N95 masks, County Public Health said in the update. “All other supplies are low or critical low or nonexistent,” officials said.
This story was originally published April 22, 2020 at 6:08 PM.
