So many people have tested positive for COVID-19 at the Fresno County Jail that the total number of cases now exceeds the entire incarcerated population. According to the Fresno County Sheriff’s Office, nearly 4,000 inmates and staff members have tested positive for the virus since the pandemic started, a total …
Read More »Fresno County Sheriff Won’t Enforce Stay-At-Home Order; First Round Of Vaccines Anticipated
In a press call on Thursday, Governor Gavin Newsom announced that regional stay-at-home orders are imminent . He explained that these orders would be triggered locally when intensive care units in a particular region’s hospitals become so crammed that they’re more than 85 percent full. The nine counties of the …
Read More »Avenal Isn’t The Only Kings County Prison Facing Massive Outbreak – COVID-19 Update For Nov. 20
More than 3,300 inmates and staff have tested positive for COVID-19 at Avenal, which is the highest total of any prison in California and possibly in the entire country . So far, the virus has killed eight of the prison’s incarcerated men. However, Avenal isn’t the only prison in the …
Read More »Fresno County Grand Jury Report Calls for Coordination Among Groups Tackling Homelessness
Street2Home was announced in 2018 as an initiative by the city and county of Fresno to coordinate homelessness mitigation across organizations . But in a report released Monday , the Fresno County Grand Jury found it doesn’t have a staff, or board yet. H. Spees, director of strategic initiatives for …
Read More »Immanuel Schools, Fresno County Settle Legal Battle Over In-Person Instruction
The superintendent of Immanuel Schools said Wednesday he’s pleased to no longer be arguing the legality of keeping his K-12 private school in Reedley open. That’s due to a recent settlement among Immanuel, Fresno County, and the state attorney general’s office. The settlement comes now that Fresno County is in …
Read More »Despite Red Tier Status, Kern County Deems Some Gyms ‘Essential Businesses’
Depending on a county’s status in California’s reopening blueprint , most of the state’s gyms are allowed to operate either exclusively outdoors or indoors with tight restrictions on capacity. In Kern County, however, some gyms have been designated as essential, allowing them to circumvent those guidelines. The two Sculpt 365 …
Read More »Whiplash As Fresno County Businesses Face Closures, Again – COVID-19 Update For Oct. 9
Last week, Fresno County businesses celebrated that the county had advanced into the red, less restrictive tier of the state’s COVID-19 reopening plan. Then, this past Tuesday, they learned that they may be forced to close back up again, as early as next week, if the county’s case rate doesn’t …
Read More »Fresno County Advances In State’s Tiered COVID-19 Plan, Allowing More Businesses To Reopen
After weeks of improving COVID-19 numbers, Fresno County has advanced to the next tier in the state’s reopening framework known as the Blueprint for a Safer Economy . The county is the first in the San Joaquin Valley to graduate out of the purple tier, the most restrictive level that …
Read More »Kern County Demands Governor Newsom Stop ‘Moving The Goalposts’ On COVID-19 Reopening
Earlier this week, the Kern County Board of Supervisors voted to challenge a part of Governor Gavin Newsom’s plan to reopen counties during the COVID-19 pandemic, arguing a data algorithm unfairly penalizes the county. According to the raw numbers, Kern County is currently meeting the data targets that would allow …
Read More »Case Counts Improve, Yet State Guidelines ‘Penalize’ Kern County – COVID-19 Update For Sept. 18
Over the last few weeks, the local COVID-19 landscape has changed dramatically. In the San Joaquin Valley, average daily cases have dropped to a fraction of what they were in late July and early August, and hospitals are regaining the beds necessary for their normal, non-COVID volume of patients. Dozens …
Read More »Fresno County Supervisor Steve Brandau Supports Immanuel Schools After County Serves Injunction
Fresno County has filed an injunction against the Reedley-based private, Christian schools that began in-person classes earlier this month, despite prohibitive state guidelines. Supervisor Steve Brandau held a press conference Monday afternoon to oppose the lawsuit against Immanuel Schools, which serve kindergarten through twelfth grade students. “It isn’t because Immanuel …
Read More »After Dropping Early In Pandemic, Fresno County Suicides In June Rose To Highest In Years
In June, 17 people in Fresno County died by suicide, a number that the Fresno County Behavioral Health Department revealed is the highest of any month since at least 2017. It’s made all the more stark by the fact that early on in the COVID-19 pandemic, suicides had dropped significantly. …
Read More »Amidst Demonstrations And Reopenings, Kern County Watching COVID-19 Caseload ‘Very Closely’
As protests continue across the country, let’s not forget there’s still a pandemic in our midst. As of publication, 194 people across the San Joaquin Valley and foothills have died due to COVID-19 out of more than 8,000 known cases of the disease. In this interview, FM89’s health reporter Kerry …
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