Seven new deaths, 700+ COVID-19 cases reported since Friday in Merced County
With Christmas just days away, the Merced County Department of Public Health’s COVID-19 update on Monday showed the virus continued to surge locally without any significant sign of slowing.
Seven more lives were taken by the novel coronavirus over the weekend, County Public Health confirmed. Known deaths caused by the pandemic stand at 223 as of Monday.
That’s 41 reported deaths so far in December.
Two of the deaths were among the younger age bracket of 35-49, County Public Health reported. The other five were age 65 or older.
Four of the new fatalities were women and three were men. Six of the deaths were among individuals with underlying health conditions. The health status of the seventh is currently unknown by County Public Health.
New positive tests also remained in the high hundreds and above, tallying neck-and-neck with the case spikes reported during the summer surge. A total of 734 Merced County residents received positive COVID-19 results since Friday.
Saturday clocked the highest daily case count over the last three days at 311. Sunday saw the lowest number at 190 cases, while Monday’s cases tallied 233.
Since the first case was confirmed locally in late March, 16,760 county residents have tested positive for COVID-19.
Concerns over holiday gatherings
Like every holiday this year, recent surging cases have been tied in part to mixing households and lack of social distancing during Thanksgiving gatherings, County Public Health officials say. Concern for holiday gatherings has been renewed with upcoming Christmas celebrations.
But that concern is even more poignant now, as hospital capacity in the 12-county San Joaquin Valley is critically strained. The region’s intensive care unit availability was once again 0% on Monday.
The regional stay-at-home orders Merced and a majority of other California counties are subject to are part of an effort to avoid dipping as low as 0% ICU availability. But as COVID-19 transmission increases throughout the state, free ICU beds in both the San Joaquin Valley and Southern California regions keep hitting the 0% mark.
The three week stay-at-home at home orders, which affect over 98% of state residents and four of California’s five regions, remain in place. But Gov. Gavin Newsom said Monday that the order will most likely be extended, due to the severity of the virus’s spread.
The state is experiencing record-breaking numbers with how many people are in ICU beds at 3,644 — double the peak from July. That is also an increase of 63% from two weeks ago, according to state numbers.
In Merced County, the latest state-reported numbers showed just four of its 24 ICU beds were free on Sunday.
Twelve more residents were actively hospitalized on Monday for severe cases of the virus within the county compared to Friday.
Public Health officials strongly urge California residents to remain diligent with social distancing, wearing a face mask and refraining from mixing with other households during the holidays.
Outbreaks rise, other COVID-19 data improve slightly
Three more novel coronavirus outbreaks were added to Merced County’s outbreak list since Friday, raising it to 61. No locations were removed.
The new outbreaks are at the Los Banos Home Depot, R.M. Miano Elementary School (also in Los Banos) and Merced Faculty Associates Parkside location in Merced.
At least three cases tied to a facility within two weeks is considered an outbreak. Skilled nursing facilities are the exception because of the high-risk setting, and only one case constitutes an outbreak. Workplaces are cleared when no further cases are traced back for two weeks.
Although crucial data used by the state to group counties into reopening tiers still tallied high in Merced County on Monday, some improvement was made since Friday.
New daily positive cases per 100,000 residents decreased to an average of 44.6 from 49.6 over the last seven days. Still, any higher than seven new cases per 100,000 residents lands a county within the most limited reopening rules.
Testing positivity, which measures the percentage of residents screened for the virus during the past week whose results are positive, also declined to 13.2%. The data point must be brought down further to below 8% before more businesses can reopen locally.
With case rates improving slightly, so too did the number of infections considered active. At 3,123, twelve fewer cases are deemed active than Friday.
The Fresno Bee’s Thaddeus Miller contributed to this report.
