San Benito County added one newly confirmed COVID-19 case to its total Tuesday.
That brought the number to 53 local cases since the pandemic started including 48 recoveries, three active cases and two deaths, according to county figures released this afternoon.
The county’s figures show 25 community transmissions and 25 person-to-person transmissions of the virus to go with three travel-related cases. There have been 1,046 patients tested with 27 pending results.
Tuesday’s figures continued a trend of typically seeing zero or one new case on a daily basis. The local infection rate has slowed considerably, but may increase as the county rolls out its expanded testing in the coming days and weeks. The county has been designated with priority standing and will administer somewhere between 5,000 to 8,000 tests.
While the infection rate may go up with more accurate testing, it also would amount to a lower death rate per infection.
The county’s hospitalization rate, meanwhile, has been extremely low. Dr. Michael Bogey, the emergency department director at Hazel Hawkins Memorial Hospital, said Tuesday that the local hospital has had a total of five COVID-19 patients and just one who needed a ventilator.
The county released the following Tuesday:
To date, a total of 1,046 patients in San Benito County (SBC) have been tested for COVID-19 at twenty-one reporting laboratories. Of these, 966 have tested negative for COVID-19 and 27 are pending results. Fifty-nine percent (613) of patients tested were female. Patients ages ranged from 10 months to 101 years (median: 45 years). SBC Public Health Services continues to work with medical providers to identify and test individuals who meet criteria for COVID-19 testing. As of May 5, 2020, there have been a total of 53 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in SBC; 3 cases remain active. Confirmed cases include patients who have since recovered and those who are deceased. Forty-eight patients have recovered and are no longer considered active cases in SBC. A total of 2 deaths have been reported in SBC, one during weeks 12 and 14, respectively. All results included in this update are current to May 5, 2020 at 3:30PM.
