Coronavirus updates: Mariposa County on red tier; Merced-area bishop spurs petition

Last week, California had just two counties listed in Tier 1 of its Blueprint for a Safer Economy.

Now it has none.

Mariposa had been listed in the yellow Tier 1 (denoting minimal risk of the coronavirus contagion) until last week when it was moved into the more restrictive orange Tier 2.

On Saturday, the county was shifted further back, into red Tier 3.

The red tier denotes substantial risk of coronavirus infection and a county-wide positivity rate of 5%-8% over seven days.

Six California counties are listed in the red Tier 3 and one is listed in the less restrictive orange Tier 2. The remaining 51 counties (including the rest of central San Joaquin Valley) are in the most restrictive purple tier.

Tier assignments can be changed at any time and can occur more than once a week, when deemed necessary, according to the California Department of Public Health.

Mariposa County has seen just 118 total positive cases, according to state data. Of those, 32 were reported over the last two weeks.

Across the region, case counts and deaths

California health officials report 1,183,320 total cases of COVID-19 and 19,089 deaths. More than 23 million tests have been administered.

Since the start of the pandemic, Merced County has reported 179 deaths and a total of 11,537 cases of infection (the county has not reported updated numbers over the Thanksgiving weekend).

Fresno County has seen 37,994 cases of coronavirus since the pandemic began. It has reported 481 deaths related to the infection, including four new deaths reported on Friday. According to the county’s dashboard, 274 are hospitalized.

Madera County has reported 6,050 cases and 85 deaths, according to data from the state through Friday night. Kings County has 10,667 and 87 deaths and Tulare County has 20,634 and 308 deaths.

Faithful America urges Merced-area bishop to recant on vaccines

The progressive Christian activist group Faithful America has issued a petition urging Diocese of Fresno Bishop Joseph Brennan to take back remarks he made in a video earlier this month.

In the video, Brennan warned Roman Catholics against jumping on the “COVID-19 vaccine bandwagon” and said Catholics must “always and only pursue vaccines that are ethical and morally acceptable. The use of fetal stem cell material at any stage of a vaccine’s development means it would be off-limits to Catholics.

Brennan mentions by name the vaccine made by Pfizer, even though it is listed as “ethically uncontroversial” by the anti-abortion Charlotte Lozier Institute.

The petition, which has been signed more than 10,000 times, calls for Brennan and Texas Bishop Joseph Strickland to “recant, apologize, and join other bishops in encouraging Catholics to take the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines once available.”

The Diocese of Fresno oversees 87 parishes in Merced, Fresno, Tulare, Kings, Kern, Inyo, Madera, and Mariposa counties. The diocese serves an estimated 1.2 million Catholics across those eight counties.

This story was originally published November 29, 2020 at 10:28 AM.