Ten more people have died and more than 1,000 new cases of coronavirus in Kern County were reported Wednesday morning, as cases continue to climb rapidly locally.
Total deaths have now reached 115 in Kern and cases now exceed 11,000. The number of individuals tested is close to 110,000 out of a population of 900,000 throughout the county.
In addition, local hospitals welcomed an additional 32 COVID-19 patients over a 48-hour period Sunday through Tuesday, according to a state hospital tracker.
In recent weeks, the daily number of new cases has hovered around 100 to 150 per day, but on Saturday they reached less than 500 and the number has increased daily since then.
On Tuesday, Kern was again added to the state watch list of counties that are exceeding certain COVID-19 metrics.
Why do cases increase so much?
That watchlist says: “Possible drivers of elevated disease transmission include: 1) An exponential expansion of testing for residents of Kern County; 2) Transmission in skilled nursing facilities, prisons, and other community facilities; 3 ) Household contacts and social gatherings between separate households. “
County officials said earlier this week that the number of people screened began to rise rapidly earlier this month.
UC Irvine epidemiologist Andrew Noymer said growth is what ultimately happens in an exponential growth pandemic, where the rate of increase is proportional to the size of the number of cases.
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