Merced County reports first COVID-19 death for this week, 51 new infections
The Merced County Department of Public Health on Friday confirmed the first novel coronavirus-caused death in a week.
Merced County had nearly made it a full week since last Friday without a new pandemic-related fatality of a resident. Friday’s death raised the number of local lives lost to COVID-19 to 156.
Deaths of county residents due to COVID-19 complications have decreased in frequency and number in recent weeks. But the county has not yet made it a full week without a new fatality for months.
The most recently deceased resident was a male, age 65 or older, who had underlying health conditions prior to death, according to County Public Health.
New novel COVID-19 cases in Merced County on Friday hit the highest daily count since Sept. 11, as 51 additional infections were tallied to the county’s running total.
The new cases increased the total number of infected residents since the pandemic’s start to 9,674.
Compared to recent weeks, higher than typical daily COVID-19 cases numbering 40 or more were reported on Friday, Thursday and Monday. The uptick meant that a rocketing number of COVID-19 cases presumed to be active on Friday was no surprise.
The active case count increased from 321 on Thursday to 360 Friday, representing the highest amount of active cases since Sept. 24. Active cases had hovered above and below the 300 threshold during prior weeks before climbing on Friday.
Active cases are an estimate based on the total number of new laboratory confirmed infections reported within the last two weeks.
The percentage of all residents screened for COVID-19 during the past week whose results returned positive also grew slightly on Friday from 2.4% to 2.5%.
Testing positivity is one of the crucial metrics used by the state to determine how much a county can reopen its local economy under the four-tiered reopening plan for California.
Merced County’s testing positivity is still well within the threshold for its tier and is positioned well to advance toward increased opening. Other data points, however, must still improve.
Active hospitalizations of Merced County residents on account of severe COVID-19 cases also increased by two patients to 27. Nine patients are hospitalized locally while the remaining majority are looked after at outside facilities.
One local data point that remained stable on Friday was the county’s active coronavirus outbreaks. Although the list’s 12 locations were unchanged, active outbreaks nearly doubled on Thursday when five new facilities were listed as having outbreaks.
Several of Thursday’s additional outbreak locations included skilled nursing facilities, where just one case constitutes an outbreak due to the high risk setting. At other workplace locations, three cases within a two week period are required to be defined as an active outbreak.
Of the 68,536 total Merced County residents screened for COVID-19 as of Friday, 15.3% have tested positive for the virus.
