Coronavirus update, Jan. 4: Stanislaus County hospitals remain under pressure
Latest facts on COVID-19 in Modesto area
As the number of hospitalizations due to COVID-19 remained a grave issue throughout the country, there was no sign of let-up in Stanislaus County.
For the third straight day, area health care facilities reported an uptick after reaching a two week low last week, according to the Health Services Agency dashboard.
The number of people hospitalized with confirmed cases of the coronavirus grew to 330 on Sunday, up from 315 the day before. Meanwhile, the number of available staffed adult intensive care unit beds remained at three.
The news came on the same day the county reported zero deaths for one of the few times in the last month, and saw its 14-day positivity rate fall below 16%.
While the rate of infection is up over the last seven days, to 16.27%, the 14-day rate fell to 15.33%.
The county announced reported 329 more infections on Sunday.
The county has recorded 35,800 overall cases. Stanislaus also has 313,444 negative test results and 31,337 people who are presumed recovered from the virus.
Data on the 12-county San Joaquin Valley Region ICU space, which fell below 15% last month to trigger a stay-at-home order that remains in effect, was not updated Saturday. The day before, San Joaquin and Southern California were at 0%. the Bay Area at 8.4%, Sacramento 10.3% and Northern California, which stretches north to Humboldt County, was at 35.5%.
Last week, the county, in addition to announcing it had been allocated 15,000 vaccine doses, unveiled its distribution plan. It outlined the order in which sectors and residents, by phase and tiers, would be offered vaccinations. Currently, it is in Phase 1, Tier 1, which covers “acute care, psychiatric and correctional facility hospital staff.”
Information regarding vaccinations in Stanislaus County is on the county dashboard at schsa.org/coronavirus/vaccine/.
The demographic breakdowns of the positive tests in Stanislaus County as of Saturday:
- 53.9% are female
- 46.1% male
- 7.5% are 14 years or younger
- 16.1% are ages 15 to 24
- 19.7% are 25 to 34,
- 17.5% are 35 to 44,
- 15.1% are 45 to 54
- 12% are 55 to 64
- 6.5% are 65 to 74
- 3.5% are 75 to 84
- 2% are 85 or older.
- Though they make up 47 percent of the population, Latinos represented 63.7 percent of the positive cases.
Geographically:
- Modesto has 12,568 positive cases
- Turlock has 4,783
- Ceres has 3,763
- Patterson has 1,710
- Riverbank has 1,558
- Oakdale has 1,054
- Newman has 757
- Waterford has 401
- Hughson has 340
- Supervisorial District 3 has 1,810
- District 5 has 1,700
- District 2 has 1,469
- District 1 has 778
- District 4 has 238
- San Joaquin County has 651 COVID-19-related deaths among 45,583 cases.
- Merced County has 260 deaths among 19,444 cases.
- Tuolumne County has 2,962 cases and 21 deaths.
- Mariposa County has 265 cases and four deaths.
As of Monday morning, there were 2,428,610 confirmed cases in California and 26,638 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University. There were 20,640,214 U.S. cases and 351,950 deaths.
Vaccine allotment nears 15,000
Almost 15,000 vaccine doses have now been allocated to Stanislaus County, pushing forward an effort to vaccinate health care workers nd other priority groups against COVID-19.
Staying safe on an odd New Year’s weekend
Modesto police want residents to ring in the new year safely, but officers’ efforts Thursday night and into the holiday weekend will be focused primarily on impaired drivers and armed revelers, not shutting down celebratory gatherings.
Stay-home order isn’t going anywhere soon
Stanislaus County and the rest of the San Joaquin Valley region remains under a state stay-home order designed to slow a winter surge of the coronavirus pandemic.
Modesto bus drivers, staff contract COVID-19
Modesto Area Express buses are making fewer trips after about a dozen of its employees tested positive for COVID-19, according to the city.
Free money part of the RAD Card program
Everyone could use a little free money this time of year. And now the RAD Card is going to give Stanislaus County residents even more just in time for the holidays.
From around the state, nation and world
As the U.S. COVID-19 death toll surpassed 350,000 Sunday, President Trump claimed the country’s fatality count toll was “far exaggerated,” an assertion that was quickly refuted by the nation’s top infectious-diseases expert.
The U.S. ramped up COVID-19 vaccinations in the past few days after a slower-than-expected start, bringing the number of shots dispensed to about 4 million, government health officials said Sunday.
India will not allow the export of the Oxford University-AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine for several months, the head of Serum Institute of India, which has been contracted to make 1 billion doses of the vaccine for developing nations, said Sunday.
This story was originally published January 4, 2021 at 5:00 AM.
