Fresno County reports nearly 1,300 new COVID-19 cases and 11 new deaths in past 24 hours

FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) – Fresno County has reported 11 new COVID-related deaths and nearly 1,300 new cases in the past 24 hours.

It’s an alarming leap in the spread of a virus that just a few months ago appeared to be dying out in the region.

By June, the number of confirmed cases had fallen to a low of around 20 each day. Local leaders were optimistic, businesses began to open up, and many indoor mask mandates and other restrictions were lifted.

Now the county appears to be falling back into the worst time of the COVID-19 pandemic once again, when thousands of new cases were reported every day. A total of 4,710 cases have been confirmed in Fresno County since last Wednesday.

The county has not seen a spike in cases like this since last December and January, when local hospitals saw a huge influx of infected patients during holiday gatherings, and local intensive care units failed. more than 0% of their capacity.

On December 14, 2020, the county reported a peak of 1,102 new cases.

On January 8, 2021, at the height of another COVID spike, the county recorded 1,003 new cases.

Since then, the number of cases in the county has steadily declined, even dropping to single digits on June 6, when only 9 new cases were reported.

But that’s when the deadly and highly infectious delta variant began to spread to the Central Valley and other parts of the country, and case rates started to rise again.

Fresno County’s current 7-day average case rate is 20 times higher than in June, and health officials warn we could see a second, deadlier version of the coronavirus pandemic.

Just over 46% of the population of Fresno County is fully vaccinated against COVID-19.

NOTE: The above video is from a story from August 5, when health officials were already warning of the next increase in cases.