Is the summer COVID surge starting to fade in Fresno? Interactive charts show the trends
New COVID-19 cases declined for the third consecutive week in Fresno County and neighboring central San Joaquin Valley counties, signaling a possible slowdown of a summer surge that had accelerated from May through mid-July.
Health officials in Fresno County reported 3,054 new confirmed coronavirus cases and 10 deaths this week. That’s down from more almost 3,300 in the week ending July 30, and from almost 3,500 in the week ending June 23. The current summer surge peaked at more than 3,700 cases in the ending July 16.
This week’s cases bring the number of laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 infections to almost 264,000 in Fresno County since the earliest cases were detected in March 2020. Those include 2,815 fatalities.
That official figure does not include about 28,000 probable coronavirus cases estimated in Fresno County by the California Department of Public Health based on positive results from at-home antigen rapid tests – many more of which are believed to go unreported to health officials.
Valleywide cases have also been trending lower in recent weeks, from a peak of 6,621 new confirmed cases identified in the week ending July 16 to 5,810 this week through Friday. Across the six-county region of Fresno, Kings, Madera, Mariposa, Merced and Tulare counties, infections to date total at least 552,789 since March 2020, including 6,041 deaths blamed on the virus.
In the meantime, the number of people sick enough with COVID-19 to require inpatient hospital care Valleywide continues to rise on a week-over-week basis.
State health officials reported that as many as 247 patients with confirmed coronavirus cases were in Fresno County hospitals this week. That’s about the same as the previous week’s peak. Valleywide, hospitalizations for COVID-19 peaked this week at 346 on Monday, higher than any point since the first week of March.
More children are having to be hospitalized for serious COVID-19 cases so far in 2022 than in either 2020 or 2021, said Joe Prado, assistant director of the Fresno County Department of Public Health. In a video briefing with reports Friday afternoon, Prado noted that the youngest age groups of the population, from six months to 17 years old, are also the least vaccinated against coronavirus in the county.
Dr. Rais Vohra, interim health officer for Fresno County, added that while COVID-19 vaccines are not required for children who will be entering or returning to school for the 2022-23 school year that begins in the next few weeks, “they are highly recommended.”
Explore the charts below to see COVID-19 trends for Fresno, Kings, Madera, Mariposa and Merced counties in COVID-19 cases, fatalities and hospitalizations.
