Merced County COVID-19 death toll approaching 300, as hospitals continue to struggle
The COVID-19 pandemic’s death toll in Merced County is about to reach another grim milestone.
An additional six fatalities were reported by Merced County Department of Public Health on Friday, bringing the total number of deaths to 296. At this rate, it’s likely the county will pass 300 deaths sometime next week.
Thirty-six of those fatalities have been confirmed just 15 days into the new year.
In addition, December was the deadliest month thus in Merced County since the pandemic’s start, according to County Public Health. Nearly 80 deaths of county residents were traced to COVID-19 in December.
Hospitalizations surged in December
December also saw the most COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations, largely due to to social gatherings during the holidays. So far, early indications show a similar trend possibly continuing into January, according to County Public Health.
New laboratory confirmed cases of the virus continued to add Friday to the county’s total tally in significant numbers. The 293 additional cases raised Merced County’s caseload to 23,492 since the first local infection was confirmed in March.
Daily case counts have not numbered less than 100 since Nov. 28.
Infections considered active increased again to 3,761 cases on Friday. The estimate is calculated via the number of laboratory confirmed cases during the past 14 days.
Active outbreaks of the virus also rose by two new locations on Friday, bringing Merced County’s outbreak list to 46.
The new outbreaks are at Livingston Walnut Child Development Center and the California Highway Patrol’s Merced Office.
Workplaces are deemed as having active outbreaks when at least three COVID-19 cases are traced back to the location within two weeks.
Roadblocks to reopening
Other indicators of case transmission show that the virus’s spread has yet to slow.
Testing positivity, which measures the percentage of positive COVID-19 results compared to overall tests during the last week, increased sharply to 16% on Friday from 15.2% Thursday.
That percentage must be at least halved to 8% or less for more nonessential businesses to reopen, per California’s blueprint for reopening the economy. Merced County, along with 99.9% of the state’s population, is subject to the strictest reopening tier’s stringent business closures.
New daily cases per 100,000 county residents also rose notably to 77, up from 73.3 on Thursday. The data point has a long road to improvement: no more than seven daily cases per 100,000 residents is permitted under the state’s next reopening tier.
But even before the county advances to a tier allowing more businesses to open, the San Joaquin Valley’s regional stay-at-home orders will have to be lifted.
Triggered in early December, the 12-county region has had many businesses shuttered in an effort to combat area hospitals’ weak intensive care unit capacity.
For weeks now, the San Joaquin Valley has clocked in at 0% ICU availability. The neighboring Southern California region has fared the same.
Merced County itself fell to just two free ICU beds on Thursday, according to the most recent hospital numbers reported by the state. No more than three ICU beds have been available on any day this week.
Plus, more recent county-reported data showed 55 in-county hospitalizations on Friday -- an increase of seven patients since Thursday.
Merced County Public Health officials have warned the dire state of the strained healthcare system has jeopardized hospitals’ ability to deliver patient care in a timely manner.
The influx of patients recently has caused each of the county’s hospitals to toggle between conventional care and “contingency care” at times on a day-to-day basis, according to County Public Health.
It has also meant increased patient waiting times, cancellation of elective surgeries and allocating hospital beds and entire floors to COVID-19 patients.
If the situation further deteriorates, County Public Health said local hospitals will move into crisis standards of care, signaled by triaging medical care and ventilators. That would mean some patients who need intensive levels of care may not be able to receive it.
