Active Merced County coronavirus cases continue to fall, but deaths still rise
The Merced County Department of Public Health on Thursday confirmed the deaths of two more county residents due to the novel coronavirus.
The additional fatalities brought Merced County’s COVID-19 death count to 114 since the pandemic’s start. Eight individuals have been reported dead by County Public Health since Monday.
One of the most recently deceased was male and the other female. Both were age 65 or older and had underlying health conditions prior to their deaths, according to County Public Health.
Also Thursday, 70 new laboratory confirmed COVID-19 cases were added to Merced County’s running total. Known COVID-19 infections now number 7,814 since the pandemic began.
Thursday’s 70 COVID-19 cases continued the recent shift of new daily infection counts being lower than those reported in July and early-to-mid August.
Then, it was common for daily cases to number in the hundreds. The highest count for a single day reached 366. Over the last week, new infections each day tallied 105 or fewer — dropping as low as 37 on Wednesday.
Cases presumed active, meaning test results were confirmed within the last 14 days, also continued to notably decline. Active infections tallied 1,523 on Wednesday, and fell to 1,253 Thursday.
However, the active case count is only an estimate due to County Public Health officials being unable to manage individual infections because of the high case volume.
The California Department of Public Health also reported improvements to Merced County coronavirus data on Thursday.
County percentages for change in COVID-19 hospitalized patients over a three-day average, local intensive care unit bed capacity and ventilator availability all met state-defined thresholds. Metrics like this determine whether a county is placed on the state’s watch list for areas with concerning COVID-19 data.
Being on the list limits counties’ ability to open certain facilities, like schools. Counties must meet state criteria for an extended period of days before they are allowed to begin reopening restricted sectors — and data is highly fluid.
Still, Merced County’s testing positivity (meaning the percent of COVID-19 tests over the last week that return positive) and case rate per 100,000 residents continued to exceed the CDPH’s maximum benchmarks.
County residents with COVID-19 infections severe enough to to require hospitalization fell by four patients on Thursday to 85. Of those, 25 individuals are being looked after at facilities in the county, while the others are hospitalized elsewhere.
The number of residents ever hospitalized due to COVID-19, however, rose by four patients to 556.
Current COVID-19 outbreaks remained at 21 Thursday.
The largest of the outbreaks is connected to the Foster Farms facility in Livingston, where at least 358 employees have tested positive for COVID-19 and eight have died, according to County Public Health. The facility was ordered on Wednesday to shut down until safe.
This story was originally published August 27, 2020 at 5:29 PM.
