Coachella Valley coronavirus news and info | Thursday, June 25

By
Casey Dolan
-
(?: Sharon Calcagno)

Cactus Hugs has been tracking local stories about the coronavirus.   For a rundown of all of our updates, click here. Stay safe, stay at a good social distance. Thank you for your continued support of Cactus Hugs. For ways to keep this website going (and free!), click here.

As of 3 pm Thursday, Riverside County officials have confirmed:

  • 15,142 people have officially tested positive for COVID-19.  238 people have been reported positive in the last 24 hours.
  • 435 people are confirmed to have died in the county from the coronavirus. This number includes 3 people reported dead in the last 24 hours.

Here’s the latest from the Coachella Valley:

As of 3 pm Thursday, San Bernardino County has confirmed:

  • 10,769 people have officially tested positive for COVID-19.
  • 248 people are confirmed to have died in the county from the coronavirus.

As of 4 pm Thursday, the State of California has confirmed:

  • 197,588 people have official tested positive for COVID-19.
  • 5,750 people are confirmed to have died in the state of CA from the coronavirus.

Gov. Gavin Newsom announced an alarming number of new cases in the state on Thursday. “We’ve seen 56,000 new cases just in the past 14 days,” Newsom stated in his daily press conference.  That’s over a quarter of the total 195,000 cases identified so far. In addition to cases, there has been a 32% increase in coronavirus hospitalizations over the past two weeks in California.

Riverside County was basically told to get its act together on Thursday.  The state public health officer “may take action,” according to a spokesperson for the California Department of Public Health, “if the county makes insufficient or no progress.”  Riverside County was placed on California’s “Targeted Engagement” list due a rise in cases a week ago and told it had two weeks to get numbers to a level officials deemed acceptable. Now, we are halfway through that timeline, and cases continue to increase. The positivity rate over the past seven days as of Wednesday was 10 % in the county, which is higher than last Sunday’s 9.4% and the state’s 8% standard.  A county spokeswoman said that officials “may make additional recommendations or restrictions,” but didn’t provide any details on what those might be.

The director of the CDC said that officials believe that as many 20 million Americans may have had coronavirus, with many not knowing it. “Our best estimate right now is that for every case that was reported, there actually were 10 other infections,” Dr. Robert Redfield said during a call with reporters Thursday. Redfield estimates that between 5% and 8% of the U.S. population has been exposed, but emphasized that still leaves more than 90% of Americans who have yet to be exposed and who remain susceptible.

CVS Health announced on Thursday that it was adding 35 additional testing sites at select drive-thrus in California.  One of the new locations is the CVS at 82-270 Highway 111 in Indio. The other locations continuing to offer testing (at no cost) in the desert are:

  • 84-010 Avenue 50, Coachella;
  • 42-150 A Jackson St., Indio;
  • 44-075 Jefferson St., La Quinta;
  • 425 S. Sunrise Way, Palm Springs

There has been quite a lot of talk about masks over the last couple of weeks.  New projections of coronavirus deaths in the United States show that, if you don’t like 33,059 of your fellow Americans dying, you should go ahead and wear one when you go out:

It’s been a few days now since President Donald Trump said he asked that there be less testing of coronavirus, which the White House claimed was some sort of joke.  Thursday, he stated that we wouldn’t have coronavirus cases in the country if we didn’t test –  as if the hospitals would just suddenly clear out and people who are sick would instantly be well:

The Automobile Club of Southern California projects less people who live in California, Washington, and Oregon will travel 50 miles or more from July 1 to Sept. 30 compared to last year. The main reasons: Air travel is expected to be down 72% and trains / cruises down a whopping 85%.  That still projects to 107 million-plus estimated trips, which, overall, is a 17 percent dip from the 129 million trips taken last summer.

Disneyland will not reopen as scheduled on July 17, citing a lack of guidance from California officials. “The State of California has now indicated that it will not issue theme park reopening guidelines until sometime after July 4,” Disney said in a statement. “Given the time required for us to bring thousands of cast members back to work and restart our business, we have no choice but to delay the reopening of our theme parks and resort hotels until we receive approval from government officials.”

Fireworks have been randomly going off nightly around the Coachella Valley and the rest of the country over the last few weeks.  This has led to plenty of conspiracy theories but, as Buzzfeed points out, is really just a case of people being bored and a large supply of fireworks available to buy.

Agua Caliente Casino Rancho Mirage announced they will have a fireworks show on the 4th of July. The casino said in a press release that the event will have a live DJ and a “drive in theater” theme to allow for social distancing and will allow “only” 650 cars to park on site.

Finally…

Thank you for your continued support of Cactus Hugs.

These are stressful times for all of us. Coping with stress will make you, the people you care about, and our desert community stronger. This link has some resources to help with coping and also numbers to call or text if you, or someone you know, feels overwhelmed.

Please, take care of yourself and each other. You are important. You are valued. You are loved. ??

Anything we missed? Let us know about it.

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