FRESNO, CA (KMJ) – More cases, more deaths from COVID 19 in the San Joaquin Valley.
There were 300 cases and 11 deaths from coronavirus in the Valley as of 5:00pm Monday, April 6, 2020.
On Monday, the County of Tulare confirmed its 6th COVID 19 death with 135 cases.
The Health and Human Services Agency says it saw 3 coronavirus deaths over the weekend, two of the patients were senior citizens, over the age of 65.
Fresno County saw its second death and a big jump in numbers announced on Monday, which proved to have the largest one day gain for the County.
In a Zoom press conference, Dr. Rais Vohra, the Interim Health Officer said “Fresno County now has 124 cases,” and he confirmed a second death from coronavirus.
Dr. Vohra said that included 35 travel related cases, 18 close contact, 28 community spread or unknown, 43 cases were under investigation, 6 people recovered, and 14 people were currently in hospitals, critically ill.
He was asked about equipment, and said “at this time, there are 100-150 ventilators available in the county,” but he noted that it changes day to day.
He stressed the use of masks, but when asked about stopping social distancing, and ending the ‘Stay at Home’ order he said; “its too early to make a call.”
“We’re estimating that were going to be behind some of the larger cities, in California which are estimated to have a peak or surge by the middle to third week of this month,” said Dr. Vohra, “so we may not actually see our peak in the numbers of critically ill patients until the end of this month and that is something we are preparing for, certainly predictions are predictions they are not hard confirmations of exactly what is going to happen, but we are trying to do the best we can what we understand about this disease, but we are trying to stop the spread from person to person, by incorporating the statewide orders to shelter in place, and doing things locally, screening all employees, screening all of our healthcare workers, and masking in general and in our healthcare settings.”
Asked where the lab samples were being sent Dr. Vohra said ” most of our samples are going to one of two places, one is the Tulare County Public Health lab, and the other one is Quest Labs. and both of those labs usually offer a turn-around time of somewhere between 2 and 5 days.”
Dr Vohra said instead of just the tests to identify coronavirus, they are acting upstream of the tests by focusing on people presenting with symptoms of illness with fever and respiratory issues.
He said that doctors must act on that immediately, and make sure patients self-isolate, even before the test comes back, they need to isolate a minimum of 7 days and their doctor needs to report it to the health department.
He said their team will try to connect them to resources while they stay at home.
Dr Vohra said their hope at the Fresno County Health department is to begin to offer more local lab testing for faster results.
In other counties, Madera County reported 30 cases on Monday, up from 28 cases on the previous Friday, with 8 people recovered.
Merced County saw 29 cases up from 16 cases the previous Friday, 3 people recovered, 1 person died.
Kings County remained unchanged with 5 cases.
Mariposa still had no cases by Monday.
