HEALTH

Imperial County reports 155 new coronavirus cases and five additional deaths on Friday

Laine Henry
Palm Springs Desert Sun

Imperial County health officials on Friday confirmed 155 new cases of coronavirus and five additional virus-related deaths.

There are now 6,979 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the small county in California's southeast corner along the border with Mexico, and 105 of those have been fatal. Currently, there are only 1,234 active cases in the county.

Imperial, with 180,000 residents, is one of the smaller counties in California, ranking 30th out of 58. It is much less populous than neighboring Riverside County (2.5 million people) or San Diego County (3.3 million).

Yet Imperial ranks 7th in the state for total number of cases, and has consistently topped the state in cases per capita. Imperial has had more deaths than states such as Idaho, West Virgina, South Dakota, North Dakota, Vermont, Montana and Wyoming.  

The total cases in Imperial are broken down by age as follows, according to health officials:

  • 367 cases are among people ages 0 to 9
  • 610 cases are among people ages 10 to 19
  • 1,251 cases are among people ages 20 to 30
  • 1,256 cases are among people ages 30 to 39
  • 1,060 cases are among people ages 40 to 49
  • 1,069 cases are among people ages 50 to 59
  • 766 cases are among people ages 60 to 69
  • 382 cases are among people ages 70 to 79
  • 174 cases are among people ages 80 to 89
  • 44 cases are among people ages 90+
Grissel Franco, clinical coordinator, Cristian Franco, lead medical assistant and Brenda Vargas, medical assistant with Vo Medical Group in Calexico perform testing with patients wanting to know if they are COVID-19 positive on April 7, 2020.

The county reported 70 hospitalized positive patients, 2 hospitalized suspected patients and 16 positive patients in the ICU on Friday. None of the county's 23 surge capacity beds are currently in use.

Out of the county's 76 total ventilators on site, 36 are currently in use bringing the ventilator utilization rate to 47.4%.

County health officials reported that an additional 500 people had been tested for the virus as of Friday, bringing the total to 34,424. They reported that 145 more people have recovered, increasing the county's total number of recovered patients to 5,640.

Laine Henry is an intern at The Desert Sun. You may reach him at laine.henry@desertsun.com