Nearly 40 COVID deaths added to Merced County’s total fatalities in latest numbers update
Merced County this week added 39 new deaths to its COVID dashboard, bringing total fatalities since the beginning of the pandemic to 645.
Although Merced County’s Friday COVID-19 update appeared to show several metrics on the rise over the last week, public health officials clarified that data adjustments and reporting delays were responsible for the discrepancies, amid a week where local virus metrics generally improved.
A Merced County Department of Public Health spokesperson explained that among those data adjustments was delayed reports of 30 deaths of residents at skilled nursing facilities and sites outside of the county. Once those residents’ deaths were confirmed, they were added to the death toll.
Those 30 previously uncounted deaths occurred between July 30, 2020 and Sept. 16 of this year, according to the county.
Other dashboard adjustments
Plus, the county’s COVID-19 dashboard showed vaccinations of eligible residents drop to 49.08% as of Thursday from 54.30% one week earlier.
The apparent decline in community vaccinations was due to to data cleaning, adding the new eligible group of children 5-11-years-old and updating the county’s total population based on the California’s Department of Finance recent population estimate, according to local public health officials.
While the vaccine-eligible population metric skewed, vaccinations across Merced County’s total population grew from 43.90% last week to 45.56% on Thursday, representing a slow but steady rise in the percentage of community members protected against the virus via full vaccination.
Meanwhile, Merced County’s active COVID-19 cases, new daily cases per 100,000 residents and positivity rate each fell over the last week.
The 506 new laboratory confirmed cases of the virus counted over the last week raised the county’s total caseload to 44,566 reported during the pandemic as of Thursday.
Merced County’s COVID-19 dashboard has showed a more consistent decline in new daily cases during the past couple weeks, as the case wave that began in summer gradually falls.
Sites with active COVID-19 outbreaks within Merced County tallied the same as last week, counting 46 locations. Schools accounted for 28, or almost 61%, of active outbreaks.
Active hospitalizations in Merced County due to severe cases of the virus also remained at 36 patients, the same as the week before.
Four intensive care unit beds were available county-wide on Thursday, according to state data.
The San Joaquin Valley’s overall ICU capacity fell slightly to 11.3%, continuing to represent the region with the lowest available percentage of ICU beds. Statewide, ICU capacity was 22.8%.
This story was originally published November 12, 2021 at 12:32 PM.
