Merced County reports at least 10% vaccinated. U.K. variant found in Madera County
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Roughly 10.3 percent of Merced County’s 287,420 residents have received at least one dose of the COVID vaccine from the county, according to data from the Department of Public Health.
Public health officials have previously said they need to vaccinate at least 75 percent of Merced County’s population in order to bring the virus under control.
The data from Merced County Department of Public Health does not include vaccine sent directly to facilities from the federal government — like skilled nursing facilities. It also does not include allocations sent by the state directly to facilities like Mercy Medical Center Merced and Memorial Hospital Los Banos.
Merced County still 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.
Merced County currently has a rate of 12.8 cases of COVID per 100,000 — a decrease of .2 since Monday. Merced County also ranks fourth in the state for the most new cases reported in the last seven days according to the Los Angeles Times COVID data tracker — falling from second place on Monday.
San Joaquin County currently leads the state.
The Merced County Department of Health reported one new COVID-19 related death on Tuesday afternoon, bringing the total of fatalities to 430 since the start of the pandemic.
The latest death is a man, over the age of 65 who was known to have underlying health conditions.
Merced County also reported 41 new COVID-19 cases on Tuesday, raising the total of residents infected by the virus to 30,298 since the start of the pandemic.
There are 698 residents estimated to currently being infected by the virus, which is 86 fewer cases than a week ago.
The number of residents hospitalized in Merced County due to the coronavirus is 22 — with nine people in the ICU.
According to the state, Merced County hospitals had 10 ICU beds remaining as of Monday.
Merced County has a positivity rate of 4.8%, indicating the level of people among those tested who had a positive result. That’s a slight decrease from 6.6% a week ago..
U.K variant found in Madera County
A variant of coronavirus that emerged in the United Kingdom last fall has been discovered in a Madera County resident, the fifth person in the central San Joaquin Valley to be infected with the mutated strain.
The B.1.1.7 variant, also called the U.K. variant, showed up in a test sample that was sent to a state testing lab for genetic sequencing. Officials with the Madera County Department of Public Health said the person has already completed an isolation period and is no longer contagious.
County health staff identified people with whom the patient had been in close contact and reported that those people are now in quarantine, but no other cases of the U.K. variant have been identified in Madera County.
Three Fresno County residents were identified last week as having had the U.K. variant after test samples were taken in late February and early March. Earlier this month, Kings County health officials reported one case of the U.K. variant, as well as one person who tested positive for one of two similar variants that together are known as the West Coast strain.
The U.K. variant is now being found in more than 200 countries around the world, including almost 6,400 cases in the United States, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control. The CDC and state Department of Public Health also reported 471 cases of the B.1.1.7 strain in California as of March 19.
“While cases are decreasing in Madera County, the discovery of this variant is concerning,” Dr. Simon Paul, Madera County’s public health officer, said Tuesday. “Residents should continue to stay vigilant by limiting gatherings, practicing social distancing, and wearing a mask.”
“All approved vaccines are believed to be effective against this variant,” Paul added, “and I strongly recommend residents get vaccinated to protect themselves and their families.”
The CDC reports that the U.K. variant of coronavirus spreads more easily and quickly than other variants.
In Fresno County, interim health officer Dr. Rais Vohra said Tuesday that his department has not received any additional notification from the state about more instances of variant strains among patients.
Like Paul in Madera County, Vohra is troubled by the prospect of more cases floating around in Fresno County that may be undetected, and underscored the need for people to continue to be tested for the virus.
“There is genuine concern that (the variants) will create some complications in our control of coronavirus,” Vohra said about the possibility that one or more variants may be resistant to vaccines or other treatments.
Even after people have been vaccinated, it’s worth getting tested, he added, because none of the shots are guaranteed to be 100% effective in preventing someone from becoming infected, whether by the mainstream version of the virus or one of the variants.
Around the Valley
Stanislaus County: 60 new cases, 52,197 to date; two new deaths, 982 to date.
Fresno County: 65 new cases, 98,276 to date; three additional deaths, 1,571 to date.
Kings County: eight new cases, 22,532 to date; one additional death, 239 to date. More than 7,200 of Kings County’s cases, and 17 deaths, are associated with state prisons in Avenal and Corcoran.
Madera County: seven new cases, 15,821 to date; five additional deaths since last week, 231 to date. Almost 2,500 of the total cases are associated with state prisons in the Chowchilla area.
Mariposa County: No update as of mid-afternoon Tuesday. On Monday, the county’s totals stood at 403 cumulative cases to date, along with seven deaths.
Tulare County: 46 new cases, 48,878 to date; two additional deaths, 801 to date.
Since the first local cases of coronavirus in the global pandemic were identified in early March 2020, more than 216,000 people have been infected with COVID-19, including almost 3,300 who lost their lives to the disease.
