Coronavirus update, Jan. 31: Stanislaus County infection rate moves in right direction
Stanislaus County’s infection rate appears to be headed in the right direction, according to data released on Saturday afternoon.
Nevertheless, the death count continues to climb and available staffed adult intensive care unit beds continues to be an issue.
The county’s positivity rate fell to 14.77% on Saturday in new figures released by the state. The 5.3% decline from the previous 14-day mark is above the state’s dropoff of 4.7% over the same period.
However, the county reported six more deaths Saturday as it increased its record total for the month to 212 and 828 since the pandemic began.
The county also saw its available adult ICU beds fall to zero on Saturday after peaking to nine in the last several days. There were 242 hospitalized patients with confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the county’s health care facilities, down from 243 the day before.
The 241 positive tests announced Saturday raised the total to 45,840. Stanislaus also has 388,319 negative test results and 42,190 people who are presumed recovered from the virus.
The county’s seven-day rolling positivity rate fell slightly to 15.19% from the day before after a single-day rate of 13.69%.
The current 14-day rate is down 3.9% from the previous 14 days yet, just below the rate of decline seen at the state level. The state’s current 14-day rate is 7.8%.
Over the last seven days, Stanislaus County’s infection rate per 100,000 residents ranks 19th among the state’s 58 counties and rate of death is 19th, according to the Los Angeles Times COVID-19 tracker. Its overall death rate per 100,000 residents remains fourth in the state. Its infection rate per 100,000 residents is 16th.
A long-term projection of easing ICU capacity prompted Gov. Gavin Newsom on Monday to lift the stay-home order in the 12-county San Joaquin Valley Region. Stanislaus remains in the purple tier, the most restrictive for business and gatherings.
As of Friday, 41,200 doses of the coronavirus vaccine have been allocated to Stanislaus County. This includes 19,660 doses to health care providers and 21,540 to public health. The numbers do not include federal allocations to staff and residents at nursing care facilities and some provided directly to hospital systems.
Information regarding vaccinations in Stanislaus County is on the county dashboard at http://schsa.org/coronavirus/vaccine/.
California has administered 3,095,781 doses as of Sunday morning, up from 2,746,876 on Thursday, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention tracker. The state ranks 39th in the country, having administered 7,835 doses per 100,000 residents. Alaska ranks first, Idaho 50th among the states.
Here are the demographic breakdowns of the positive tests in Stanislaus County as of Sunday morning:
- 53.6% are female
- 46.4% male
- 7.9% are 14 years or younger
- 16.5% are ages 15 to 24
- 19.5% are 25 to 34
- 17.3% are 35 to 44
- 14.9% are 45 to 54
- 12% are 55 to 64
- 6.6% are 65 to 74
- 3.4% are 75 to 84
- 1.9% 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 16,748 positive cases
- Turlock has 6,113
- Ceres has 4,766
- Patterson has 2,282
- Riverbank has 2,064
- Oakdale has 1,424
- Newman has 1,038
- Waterford has 538
- Hughson has 492
- Supervisorial District 3 has 2,385
- District 5 has 2,214
- District 2 has 1,879
- District 1 has 1,056
- District 4 has 335
- San Joaquin County has 853 COVID-19-related deaths among 61,901 cases.
- Merced County has 350 deaths among 26,230 cases.
- Tuolumne County has 3,549 cases and 49 deaths.
- Mariposa County has 367 cases and five deaths.
As of Sunday morning, there were 3,310,949 confirmed cases in California and 40,702 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University. There were 26,076,032 U.S. cases and 439,536 deaths.
Denair arming parents with mental health resources
Denair Unified School District is piloting a program of teaching parents how to recognize and support mental health issues for their children, using videoconferencing with Dr. Neha Chaudhary, a child, adolescent and adult psychiatrist at Harvard Medical School and Stanford University.
Here are dates, times for next week’s vaccination clinics
Stanislaus County has posted hours for its four COVID-19 vaccination clinics next week.
MJC might play football after all
A month after the school opted out of a football season, Modesto Junior College football coach Rusty Stivers wants his team back on the field.
Stapley: Why we reported on rule-breaking eatery
Some people were surprised — and a little disturbed — to see a recent Modesto Bee “Business Beat” column featuring a new restaurant serving diners indoor and out, in clear violation of then-COVID public safety rules (as of Monday, it’s OK to dine outdoors).
County adds Patterson vaccine clinic
Stanislaus County’s fourth coronavirus vaccine clinic will open Friday in Patterson, bringing the two-step vaccine to the western portion of the county.
High school sports take key step
In a big step to allow all high school athletes to have a chance to play sports this school year, the CIF Sac-Joaquin Section voted 47-10 in a Board of Managers Meeting to allow each league to create its own sports schedule for the rest of the year.
Stanislaus is ‘not out in the clear’
Stanislaus County’s health officer said Tuesday the county continues to struggle with the coronavirus pandemic, even though the state lifted a regional stay-home order Monday.
From around the state, nation and world
An average of 544 people died every day in the last week, and on Saturday California reached the grim milestone of 40,000 deaths overall, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.
An alarm sounded at about 9 p.m. Thursday, alerting staff at a community hospital in Seattle that a freezer holding doses of Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine had failed, KOMO reported.
Israel has agreed to transfer 5,000 doses of the coronavirus vaccine to the Palestinians to immunize front-line medical workers, Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz’s office announced Sunday.
This story was originally published January 31, 2021 at 7:09 AM.
