Coronavirus update, Dec. 28: Stanislaus County nears record for hospitalizations
Latest facts on COVID-19 in Modesto area
Hospitalizations in Stanislaus County continued to rise Sunday, reaching a near all-time high since the start of the coronavirus pandemic in March.
In data released Sunday afternoon by the county, 348 people with confirmed cases of COVID-19 were filling up bed space in local health care facilities.
That was up from 340 on Saturday.
The county ranks 11th in the state for hospitalizations, even though it ranks 16th in population among the 58 counties.
Sunday’s total was more than 100 patients seen at the height of the summer surge when at its peak in late July there were 232 hospitalized in a single day, according to a state dashboard.
There were five available staffed adult intensive care unit beds on Sunday, down from six the day before.
Meanwhile, the county reported six more deaths to reach 150 in December for the second time in a single month since the start of the pandemic.
The state’s stay-at-home order announced three weeks ago, impacting regions whose available ICU bed count falls below 15%, is likely to be extended this week, Gov. Gavin Newsom said.
According to the state dashboard: “Once triggered, these orders will remain in effect for at least 3 weeks. After that period, they will be lifted when a region’s projected ICU capacity meets or exceeds 15%. This will be assessed on a weekly basis after the initial 3 week period.”
The San Joaquin Valley and Southern California regions, whose orders could have ended Monday, have been at 0% the last several days.
The county on Sunday saw both its 14-day rolling positivity rate (14.57%) and seven-day rate (15.45%) fall over the past day.
The state’s 14-day rate is 12.3%. Merced’s is 19%, San Joaquin’s 17.8% and Tuolumne’s 33.2%.
With 267 new cases reported Sunday, there have been 33,148 positive test results, 296,926 negative test results and 28,294 people who are presumed recovered from the virus.
The demographic breakdowns of the positive tests in Stanislaus County as of Sunday:
- 54% are female
- 46% male
- 8% are 14 years or younger
- 16% are ages 15 to 24
- 20% are 25 to 34,
- 18% are 35 to 44,
- 15% are 45 to 54
- 12% are 55 to 64
- 6% are 65 to 74
- 3% are 75 to 84
- 2% are 85 or older.
- Though they make up 47 percent of the population, Latinos represented 64 percent of the positive cases.
Geographically:
- Modesto has 11,854 positive cases
- Turlock has 4,519
- Ceres has 3,539
- Patterson has 1,627
- Riverbank has 1,486
- Oakdale has 990
- Newman has 722
- Waterford has 375
- Hughson has 310
- Supervisorial District 3 has 1,704
- District 5 has 1,633
- District 2 has 1,393
- District 1 has 740
- District 4 has 221
- San Joaquin County has 618 COVID-19-related deaths among 41,104 cases.
- Merced County has 232 deaths among 17,785 cases.
- Tuolumne County has 2,808 cases and 21 deaths.
- Mariposa County has 220 cases and four deaths.
As of Monday morning, there were 2,158,641 confirmed cases in California and 24,289 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University. There were 19,136,758 U.S. cases and 333,140 deaths.
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No place has been hit harder by the pandemic than skilled nursing homes — and no front-line workers have been hit harder than the caregivers who staff them.
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This story was originally published December 28, 2020 at 5:00 AM.
