Two more Merced County residents die after contracting coronavirus
Following a couple days without fatalities, the Merced County Department of Public Health on Friday confirmed the deaths of two more county residents due to the novel coronavirus.
The new deaths increased the total number of fatalities since the pandemic’s beginning to 142.
Both of the most recently deceased residents were males, age 65 or older, according to County Public Health. One individual had underlying health conditions prior to death, and the other did not.
Additional laboratory confirmed COVID-19 cases on Friday tallied 26, County Public Health reported. The new coronavirus infections raised Merced County’s total caseload to 8,872 since the first case was confirmed locally.
Of the 53,928 Merced County residents tested for COVID-19 to date, 16.74% have tested positive.
Cases presumed active, however, fell again to 356. Cases defined as active are those that were laboratory confirmed within the past two weeks.
Active hospitalizations of Merced County residents due to severe COVID-19 cases also decreased slightly on Friday by one patient to 39.
Ten hospitalized residents are currently at facilitates within the county. The remaining majority are hospitalized at facilities outside Merced County.
The number of residents ever hospitalized on account of coronavirus during the pandemic held steady at 688.
Other crucial COVID-19 data points remained stable on Friday, too.
For example, the percentage of all residents screened for COVID-19 over the last seven days stayed at 4%.
Consistently remaining at a testing positivity percentage this low is a positive indicator for reopening further sectors of Merced County’s local economy.
Testing positivity of 2-4.9% qualifies counties for the second-least restrictive set of opening guidelines under the statewide reopening plan. Merced County is currently subject to the strictest state-mandated closures due to its local COVID-19 data.
However, Merced County must still lower its number of daily new cases per 100,000 residents from about to nine to under seven before any reopening may take place.
Local COVID-19 outbreaks also remained unchanged on Friday. Currently, 10 workplace facilities are listed as having active outbreaks.
This means three or more laboratory confirmed cases have been linked to the locations — except for skilled nursing facilities, where just one case constitutes an outbreak due to the high risk setting.
Outbreaks are closed when no new cases are tied to the workplace for two weeks.
