Merced County COVID-19 numbers still high compared to California averages. See latest data
The swell of COVID-19 cases that began rising in Merced County during July still hasn’t flattened out, but County Public Health’s latest update on Friday did show several indicators of improvement over the past week.
Active COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations were among those metrics that improved between this Thursday and last, according to Friday’s data report. Active cases declined from 1,375 to 1,249 and current hospitalizations from 46 to 36.
New daily cases also fell to 25.2 per 100,000 residents from 27.2 per 100,000 residents last Thursday.
Vaccination of Merced County residents against COVID-19 has continued to steadily rise, albeit at a lower rate compared to the state at large.
Over 54% of the county’s population of individuals age 12 or older were fully vaccinated as of Thursday. Statewide, however, that metric has reached more than 80% of residents fully vaccinated against COVID-19, state data shows.
Still, much of Merced County’s COVID-19 data continue to paint a bleak picture of the pandemic’s hold on the region compared to different parts of the state.
Fourteen Merced County residents lost their lives within the past week after contracting COVID-19, according to County Public Health. A total of 606 known deaths have been tied to the virus since the pandemic first appeared in Merced County in March 2020.
State data reported that Merced County averaged .8 COVID-19 deaths per 100,000 residents over the past seven weeks. California overall showed .1 deaths per 100,000 residents during the same period.
Plus, the state’s new daily cases metric is nearly half of Merced County’s, averaging 13 cases per 100,000. The county’s 8.8% testing positivity rate — up from 8.4% last week — also continues to be higher than the statewide average of 2.6%.
A total of 44,060 COVID-19 cases have been confirmed locally since the pandemic’s start. The last week accounted for 568 of those cases.
Thursday represented the highest daily case count with 104 new laboratory confirmed COVID-19 infections tallied. Since cases began to ascend higher in July, daily counts have continued to regularly number upwards of 100.
Merced County’s available and staffed intensive care unit beds have remained low throughout the last week as well, ranging from as few as two free beds to only as high as six staffed beds available. A thin ICU capacity has mirrored Merced County’s rise in COVID-19 cases since shortly after July’s spike began.
The 12-county San Joaquin Valley region has consistently reported the lowest intensive care unit capacity compared to its statewide counterparts. Regional ICU capacity came to 13% as of Thursday, down from 15.7% a week ago. California as a whole reported 23.5% of all ICU beds available.
COVID-19 outbreaks too have risen in Merced County, with 46 local sites listed as of Thursday. Schools made up 27 of those locations, accounting for almost 60% of all county-wide outbreaks.
At over 24%, pediatric cases have subsided but continue to account for a higher percentage of Merced County’s cases compared to past COVID-19 waves. During prior spikes in the pandemic, residents younger than 18 typically represented less than 15% of all cases, according to Merced County Health Officer Dr. Salvador Sandoval.
Pediatric cases during the summer wave at times reached about 30% of county-wide cases.
The higher percentage of children contracting COVID-19 during the most recent case wave is likely due to a combination of unvaccinated adults spreading the virus to children too young to receive the vaccine and the spread of the infectious delta variant, according to Merced County Public Health officials.
Gov. Gavin Newsom announced this week that the state has allocated more than 1.2 million vaccines for children age 5 and older after the Pfizer vaccine was deemed safe and effective for this age group.
California is rolling out a vaccination program with more than 4,000 locations ready to vaccinate each newly eligible Californian, according to the Governor’s Office.
