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 »Valley’s New Cases Drop, But Not Within Avenal State Prison – COVID-19 Update For Sept. 25
As the COVID-19 caseload continues to fall in San Joaquin Valley communities, the opposite trend has been happening inside Avenal State Prison: With more than 2,500 cumulative cases, the facility now has the dubious honor of being the state prison with the highest cumulative case count. More than 250 men …
Read More »Valley’s New Cases Drop, But Not Within Avenal State Prison – COVID-19 Update For Sept. 25
As the COVID-19 caseload continues to fall in San Joaquin Valley communities, the opposite trend has been happening inside Avenal State Prison: With more than 2,500 cumulative cases, the facility now has the dubious honor of being the state prison with the highest cumulative case count. More than 250 men …
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 »Labor Day No Time For A ‘Holiday From Safety,’ Health Official Warns In Light Of COVID-19
Over the last month, the spread of COVID-19 in the San Joaquin Valley has slowed. But not all measures of the disease have improved, and health officials say it’s no time for the community to let down its guard. Fresno County’s Interim Health Officer Dr. Rais Vohra is concerned about …
Read More »Guardian Reporter Investigates The Link Between COVID-19 And Low-Wage Labor In The Valley
This week, The Guardian published the first in a series of reports on why COVID-19 cases have surged in the Central Valley. Valley Public Radio Host Kathleen Schock spoke with reporter Vivian Ho about her investigation into how the virus spread among agricultural workers. Also joining the conversation is UC …
Read More »Why A Massive COVID-19 Outbreak At Fresno County’s Jail Flew Under The Radar
More than 1,100 people at the Fresno County Jail have tested positive for COVID-19 since the pandemic began. The running tally of infections at the county-run complex actually surpasses those at all but two state prisons in California. But unlike the state’s careful tracking and reporting of cases at prisons …
Read More »Diabetes, Obesity, Hypertension & Severe COVID-19: Virus Update For Aug. 10-14
After announcing that a data snafu had resulted in an undercount of thousands of new COVID-19 cases, state health officials said this week the problem’s been resolved—at least at the state level. County health departments are left to clean up the data that feeds into their own county dashboards. Plus: …
Read More »Fresno American Indian Health Project Reports Increased Demand For Services During COVID-19
While reports show that the COVID-19 pandemic disproportionately affects communities of color, gaps in data have made it difficult to quantify the impact of the virus on indigenous populations. To get a better sense of how Native Americans in the Valley are faring during the pandemic, Valley Edition Host Kathleen …
Read More »Nursing Homes Remain COVID-19 Hotbeds – Virus Update For Aug. 17-21
California’s COVID-19 pandemic has evolved tremendously since it began in March, but one thing that hasn’t changed is that residents of skilled nursing facilities remain particularly at risk of severe infection and death. Although COVID-19 cases in skilled nursing facilities account for only 3 percent of the state’s overall caseload, …
Read More »State Data Gets Buggy; What Happens When Hospitals Reach Capacity? COVID-19 Update For Aug. 3-7
During a livestreamed address earlier this week, California Health & Human Services Secretary Dr. Mark Ghaly dropped a bombshell: that the state infectious disease database known as CalREDIE, where labs report testing data and county public health departments extract local numbers, has been undercounting new cases . At the same …
Read More »Fresno Housing Advocates on Eviction and COVID-19
California Gov. Gavin Newsom suspended most evictions in April. But now state lawmakers are debating whether to lift the moratorium, leaving renters who have lost their jobs to the pandemic facing an uncertain future. To learn about how this could impact the affordable housing market, and homelessness, Valley Edition host …
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