Fresno County official says rate of COVID-19 infection has plateaued

FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) -- Fresno County remains in a widespread risk tier as health officials say they would like to see more testing done.

Of the 2,000 tests administered each day by the county, about 11-13% come back positive.

The governor insists the positivity rate needs to be below 8% before a county can come off the watch list and enter a new tier.

"We would really like less than 5% because we feel like that will give us a really good ability to do outbreak testing containment, contact tracing and really work with everyone we need to work with," says Dr. Rais Vohra with the Fresno County health department.

This was just before the governor announced a new process to reopen businesses at a slower, more gradual pace than what the state tried earlier this summer.

Fresno County must also work on creating more hospital bed space.

According to Dr. Vohra, the number of hospitalizations are only now showing signs of a slight drop off.

Fresno County has fewer than 10% of its ICU beds currently available.

"If we could free up more ICU beds or create more ICU level capacity that would certainly help us leave the monitoring list," said Dr. Vohra.

While most non-essential indoor businesses remain closed, experts are optimistic about the county's ability to begin reopening in the coming weeks.

"I think we've plateaued. I don't think we've gone into a declining slope with our case counts to where we can really predict that we've flattened the curve. I think we're holding steady and maintaining," said Dr. Vohra.

Public health officials are also urging everyone to get a flu vaccine this season, saying this may be the more important year to do so.