On one-year anniversary of first local COVID case, Merced County hits 429 total deaths
Monday marked one year since the first coronavirus infection was confirmed in Merced County — and in those 12 months the county has exceeded more than 400 deaths and 30,000 cases of the virus.
Merced County on Monday reported one new death and 115 new cases, bringing its COVID totals to 429 deaths and 30,257 cases, respectively.
A total of 74,766 vaccines have been distributed to the county by the state, according to the California Department of Public Health. The does not include doses given to local pharmacies or private health providers.
Merced County remains in purple tier of the state’s Blueprint for a Safer Economy — the most restrictive level of limitations on businesses in the color-coded program.
Purple Tier 1 denotes “widespread” transmission of the virus. Counties must get below a new-case rate of 10 each day per 100,000 population — and meet or beat that benchmark for two straight weeks — in order to advance into red tier, which is less stringent.
Other Valley counties in purple tier include Stanislaus, Fresno, Madera and Kings.
Merced County currently has a rate of 13 cases of COVID per 100,000. Merced County also ranks second in the state for the most new cases reported in the last seven days according to the Los Angeles Times COVID data tracker. Del Norte County, which is at the Oregon border, currently leads the state.
The Times’ data tracker reports the San Joaquin Valley currently leads the rest of the state in new cases.
California has seen 3,547,278 confirmed cases to date, according to CDPH. There have been 56,545 COVID-19 deaths.
Statewide, 2,000 new cases were reported Sunday.
10 million vaccines in California
California has hit a substantial milestone in combating COVID-19: 10 million Californians are now at least partially vaccinated, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
A CDC data tracker updated Monday showed about 10.1 million California residents have received at least one dose, which is 26% of its population and 33% of its adult population.
The CDC also says about 5.1 million are fully vaccinated with either two doses of Pfizer or Moderna’s vaccines, or one of the single-dose shots from Johnson & Johnson. That’s 13% of California’s overall population and 17% of its adults fully protected.
Other county updates
Fresno County tallied 22 new deaths during the weekend, bringing the death total to 1,568. Another 25 cases of the virus reported on Monday brought the case total to 98,221.
Stanislaus County reported one new death since Friday, 980 deaths to date. Reported 199 new cases, 52,137 to date.
Tulare County reported six new deaths from COVID-19 on Monday, which makes that total 799. Sixty-two new cases brings the total 48,832 since the pandemic began.
Kings County totaled 22,524 cases after adding 19 on Monday. There was no change to the 238 deaths already recorded, health officials said.
Madera County reported 26 new cases, but no new deaths. That means the county has seen 15,814 cases and 226 since the pandemic began.
Mariposa County has seen 402 cases and seven deaths.
The Sacramento Bee contributed to this story.
This story was originally published March 22, 2021 at 6:00 PM.
