Coronavirus updates: Merced County reports 8 COVID deaths, rising hospitalizations
Eight more Merced County residents’ lives have been lost to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Merced County Department of Public Health reported on Thursday.
The novel coronavirus has led to 260 known fatalities in Merced County.
Two of the most recently deceased individuals were women and six were men, according to County Public Health. One individual was between age 50-64, while the other seven were 65-years-old or older.
Three of the deceased had underlying health conditions prior to their deaths. The health status of remaining five is unknown at this time.
December was the pandemic’s deadliest month in the county, tallying 78 fatalities. That tops the prior high during summer’s case surge, when August saw 67 COVID-19 deaths.
The record number of fatalities underscores the importance of practicing COVID-19 precautions on New Year’s Eve. County and state public health officials have urged residents to trade typical holiday gatherings for pandemic-safe celebrations to protect loved ones. That means practicing social distancing, wearing a face covering and refraining from gathering with other households — especially indoors.
Gatherings during every major U.S. holiday this year have led to subsequent spikes in COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths, County Public Health officials have said.
With the state already in the midst of a case surge worse than summer, that raises concerns over what the coming weeks may look like following Christmas and New Year’s Eve.
In Merced County and throughout California, the rise in fatalities follows an equally concerning spike in the number of COVID-19 cases severe enough to require hospitalization.
The state’s most recently available data reported for the second day in a row that Merced County had zero intensive care unit beds free on Wednesday.
The extreme low marked just the fourth time during the pandemic that Merced County had no free ICU beds, according to state numbers dating back to March. Three of those recorded lows have occurred within the last two weeks.
Sixteen of the county’s 24 total ICU beds were occupied by COVID-19 patients as of Wednesday, according to the data.
More recently available Merced County Department of Public Health numbers reported that 50 COVID-19 patients were hospitalized within the county on Thursday, including ICU and non-ICU patients. That’s an increase of one hospitalization since Wednesday.
The 12-county San Joaquin Valley region remained at 0% ICU availability on Thursday, too. The Valley and Southern California have consistently ranked worst recently among the state’s five regions at 0% ICU availability.
Stay-at-home orders will continue to shutter bars, wineries, restaurants and other economic sectors in impacted regions until ICU capacity rises to at least 15%. Only the Northern California region — home to less than 2% of the state’s populations — was above that threshold on Thursday.
More on latest Merced County COVID-19 numbers
County Public Health tallied 199 new COVID-19 cases to its running total on Thursday. The increase brought laboratory confirmed positive tests to 19,444 since the pandemic’s start.
Four new COVID-19 workplace outbreaks were included in the county’s list, as well. The new locations are: Juvenile Hall, County Probation’s adult office, Transition to Hope homes and Kagome Inc.
Five other workplace outbreaks were struck from the list, meaning no further cases have been linked to the facilities for two weeks.
The cleared locations are: Pacheco High School, Buhach Colony High School, the Merced County Department of Public Health, Central California Irrigation District - South and the Merced County Office of Education Special Education Office - Cooper.
Adjustments to the list reduced total active outbreaks by one location to 66.
Novel coronavirus cases considered to be active decreased by 11 on Thursday but remained high at 3,633. During the prior case surge over summer, active infections never breached 3,000.
Two of the key data points used by the state to group counties into reopening tiers remained effectively unchanged on Thursday.
Merced County’s average of new cases per 100,000 residents came to 43.2. Testing positivity, meaning the percent of residents screened for the virus over the last week whose results are positive, clocked in at 12.2%.
Each of those metrics must be brought down to single digits before the state’s blueprint for reopening the economy permits more Merced County businesses to open their doors.
This story was originally published December 31, 2020 at 5:09 PM.
