More than 1,000 Merced County residents test positive for COVID-19 in 4 days
More than 1,000 new novel coronavirus cases have been confirmed in Merced County in four days.
The Merced County Department of Public Health reported 351 new cases of the virus on Tuesday. That tally clocked in at the county’s third highest single day case increase documented since the pandemic began.
New positive test results since Friday count 1,085.
Known infections now number 17,111 total, going back to March. It was only on Friday that Merced County reached the threshold of 16,000 cases.
With the current case spike continuing to surge at unrelenting rates, subsequent COVID-19 deaths are inevitable. The two additional fatalities of Merced County residents reported on Tuesday increased total deaths to 225.
One of the deceased was a man and the other a woman, both age 65 or older. County Public Health reported that one of the individuals had underlying health conditions prior to death. The health status of the other is unknown at this time.
December so far has seen 43 county residents die after contracting the virus. Merced County’s record for COVID-19 deaths was in August, which saw 67 fatalities.
Meanwhile, intensive care unit capacity in the 12-county San Joaquin Valley region is still 0%.
ICU availability that low is what state health officials sought to avoid with the regional stay-at-home orders impacting Merced and a majority of California counties.
The orders become mandated when a region’s free ICU beds drop below 15%. Northern California remains the only of the five regions not impacted by the orders.
In Merced County, 66 COVID-19 patients were actively hospitalized within the county on Tuesday.
The most recent state data showed four of the county’s 24 ICU beds were free as of Monday. Fifteen of those beds were occupied by COVID-19 patients with the most life threatening cases of the virus.
In addition to the stay-at-home orders triggered by dwindling hospital resources, Merced County is still in the most limiting “purple” economic reopening tier. Critical COVID-19 data used by the state to group counties into tiers improved only marginally in Merced County during the last week.
New daily cases per 100,000 residents averaged 44.6, down from 45.8 last Tuesday. Testing positivity, meaning the percentage of residents tested for COVID-19 during the last week whose results are positive, worsened to just over 13%.
While case rates stay high and hospital resources remain low across the state — especially in the Valley and Southern California — public health officials urge residents to be diligent during the holidays.
Ensuing transmission spikes have been tied to gatherings during holidays due to COVID-19 precautions being disregarded.
More active cases, outbreaks
With Tuesday’s high case tally, infections considered active climbed to a new high at 3,260. Cases are deemed active if they were laboratory confirmed during the last two weeks.
While two locations previously listed as having COVID-19 outbreaks were cleared on Tuesday, three new outbreaks took their place and increased the list to 62.
The new workplace outbreaks are at Merced Heart Associates, Razzari Ford sales department and the Merced Raley’s.
Locations struck from the list were Home Depot in Merced and Central Star Crisis Residential Unit.
At most workplaces, three or more cases linked to the facility within two weeks constitutes an active outbreak. Only one case is considered an outbreak at skilled nursing facilities. Outbreaks are no longer active when no further cases are traced back for two weeks.
California is nearing 2 million known cases of the virus. As of Monday, statewide infections tally 1.925 million and deaths number 22,923.
This story was originally published December 22, 2020 at 5:41 PM.
