Merced County adds 16 COVID deaths, more than 1,000 new cases over Christmas weekend
Merced County reported 16 deaths and 1,058 new cases Monday related to the coronavirus following a long Christmas weekend.
The county last updated its totals on Wednesday, the day before Christmas Eve. The total number of cases is now 18,843, and Merced County has seen 248 deaths since the pandemic began in March, according to health officials.
The latest local deaths included nine women and seven men. One of those who died ranged between age 35 and 49, and two others were between age 50 and 64. The remaining 13 people were age 65 and up. Two of those who died were confirmed to have underlying health conditions.
Merced County had six staffed and available ICU beds through Sunday. Fifty-three people who tested positive for the virus remain hospitalized, according to health officials.
Workplace outbreaks countywide include more than 60 locations.
The six-county region of Merced, Fresno, Kings, Madera, Mariposa and Tulare counties reported at least 4,329 new cases and 29 deaths on Monday. Only Fresno and Kings reported information during Christmas with the rest holding over tallies from before Christmas Eve.
The San Joaquin Valley region is still below the 15% intensive care units availability requirement needed to reopen the economy, reporting 0% bed availability as of last week.
California enters the final week of 2020 as the U.S. epicenter of the coronavirus crisis.
The state of 40 million people has seen more than 2.1 million test positive and at least 24,220 die of COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic, according to the California Department of Public Health.
More than 570,000 of those cases and 3,250 of the deaths have come in the past two weeks — averages of about 41,000 cases and 231 deaths per day, both record highs for the state. California has reported the highest number of new cases per capita in the past week of any state, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
Stay-at-home order expected to continue
Gov. Gavin Newsom on Monday repeated his message that he will ‘likely’ extend a regional stay-at-home order that has kept restaurants and other businesses closed for indoor services in the San Joaquin Valley.
The Valley stay-at-home order was set to expire Monday. But based on the continuing lack of capacity in intensive care units, Newsom said that order will probably continue.
Newsom said a formal announcement on the stay-at-home order’s status will be made Tuesday, after the latest numbers for virus infections are considered.
The San Joaquin Valley region, as it pertains to COVID-19 orders, refers, to Fresno, Merced, Stanislaus, Calaveras, Kern, Kings, Madera, Mariposa, San Benito, San Joaquin, Tulare, and Tuolumne counties.
Other Valley counties
Stanislaus County to date has had more than 33,000 residents test positive for COVID-19. As of Monday 586 have died since the beginning of the pandemic and the county’s COVID-19 death rate is among the worst in the state.
Fresno County added 731 new cases but no new deaths on Monday, which totals 63,811 and 646, respectively. The last report in Fresno County was on Sunday.
Tulare County reported 13 deaths and 1,687 new cases in the first report since Thursday. The county has tallied 32,109 cases and 386 deaths so far during the pandemic.
Kings County added 143 news cases but no new deaths to the total. That totals 15,767 cases and 110 deaths since the pandemic began.
Madera County surpassed the 10,000-mark on Monday, tallying 10,015 cases, 710 more than was last reported on Thursday. No deaths changed the total of 116 during that same time.
Mariposa County did not report any changes to its 220 cases and four deaths.
This story was originally published December 28, 2020 at 4:55 PM.
