Active Merced County COVID-19 cases fall below 600 for first time since June
Two additional Merced County residents have died due to contracting the novel coronavirus, the Merced County Department of Public Health reported on Thursday.
The two new fatalities brought the county’s total number of deaths since the pandemic’s beginning to 133.
Both of the most recent deaths were residents who had underlying health conditions, according to County Public Health. One of the individuals was a man and the other was a woman. One person was between age 50-64 and the other was 65-years-old or older.
County Public Health also reported on Thursday that another Foster Farms employee is among the 133 countywide deaths. The fatality marks the ninth death of a Foster Farms workers following a widespread COVID-19 outbreak at the Livingston facility.
“We are saddened by the confirmation of another death of a Foster Farms employee and the Department sends our deepest condolences to the family,” said Dr. Salvador Sandoval, Merced County Public Health Officer, in a news release.
The deceased individual was hospitalized in August, prior to when County Public Health directed Foster Farms to temporarily close and increase precautions. The specific facility in which the employee worked is no longer in active outbreak status, according to County Public Health.
Public health officials continue to work closely with Foster Farms in order to monitor, provide technical assistance and conduct on-site visits to ensure compliance, the County Public Health news release said.
Also on Thursday, 27 new laboratory confirmed COVID-19 cases were added to the county’s running tally. The additional cases raised the total number of residents confirmed to have had COVID-19 to 8,719 since the pandemic started.
The 27 new cases — a relatively low number of daily cases compared to several weeks ago — continued the declining number of active COVID-19 cases in Merced County. The active case count is an estimate based on the number of new laboratory-confirmed cases reported within the last 14 days.
On Thursday, that number dipped below 600 to 597 for the first time since June, according to County Public Health numbers. Just one week ago, the active case estimate came to 743.
Also indicative of coronavirus decreasing locally is the falling testing positivity rate, which shows the percentage of all residents screened for COVID-19 within the last week who test positive.
The data point fell to 4.5% on Thursday. One week ago, it was 7.1%
Of the 51,471 total COVID-19 tests conducted locally since the beginning of the pandemic, 17.22% of all tests have returned positive.
County Public this week added information about community COVID-19 cases per capita to its coronavirus information dashboard.
While the City of Merced has the highest number of cases just by count, it falls to number eight in terms of per capita infections. Merced tallies 35.6 cases per 1,000 residents.
At 61.5 cases per 1,000 residents, the City of Livingston claims the highest per capita count, in part due to the severe outbreak at Foster Farms, County Public Health officials have said.
Winton and Delhi number two and three in terms of highest cases per capita, respectively. Los Banos has the lowest case count per capita at 26.4.
Active hospitalizations of Merced County residents with COVID-19 also decreased by three patients to 61. Eleven of those patients are hospitalized within Merced County, while the bulk of patients are cared for at facilities outside the county.
For the first time recently, the total number of residents ever hospitalized because of coronavirus did not increase. This means no new COVID-19-related hospitalizations occurred on Thursday.
Current COVID-19 outbreaks remained at 19 on Thursday, with no change to the list of local workplace outbreaks.
This story was originally published September 17, 2020 at 5:00 PM.
