COVID 365: A year on lockdown and the health impact in Central California
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FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) The health care system has felt a tremendous strain due to the coronavius.
All week on Action News, we re sharing with viewers a special series called, COVID 365: A year on lockdown.
Stories will focus on the impact the pandemic has had on our every day lives here in Central California.
The loss of a friend and fellow nurse, Sandy Oldfield, to COVID-19, shook Kaiser ICU Nurse Amy Arlund to her core.
Arlund said, After watching a nurse colleague die, I realized I m not ready to die and I don t have my life in order. A lot of us started drawing up our own wills.
Fresno County health officials still focused on vaccinating farmworkers
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FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) Farmworkers in Fresno County are already starting to get their doses of the COVID-19 vaccine, and health officials are working to get more vaccinated.
They ve kicked off their food and agriculture initiative in hopes of getting the vaccine to the most vulnerable. We re testing models to see how to get vaccines to our food and ag population, says Fresno County Health Division Manager Joe Prado. We have a big effort with Foster Farms next week and plan to vaccinate 1,000 individuals.
Prado, who s leading Fresno County s vaccination efforts, says they received about 8,000 vaccines this week.
FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) Several Valley school districts are using COVID-19 surveillance testing to help keep students and staff safe in the classroom.
Kids aren t the only ones taking tests these days in local schools. Staff members are now regularly checked for COVID-19. What they required is once we were open, we had to determine and test 10% of our employees that are face to face with students, said Clovis Unified Associate Superintendent of Human Resources, Barry Jagger.
This practice, known as surveillance testing, is a requirement for schools to hold in-person classes. Each district does it a bit differently. We select a date, I send out an email informing our staff that it s a great time to volunteer to take a test, the date, the time, and then we get sign-ups, said Roberto Gutierrez, the Deputy Superintendent of Kings Canyon Unified. Usually, we have quite a bit of staff wanting to volunteer.
Fresno County officials say COVID vaccine doses aren t coming fast enough We requested 20,000 doses, we were provided 5,100 additional doses
KFSN
FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) Health officials say the escalating loss of life is adding more urgency to get people vaccinated for COVID-19.
Fresno County health officials say they are asking the state for more doses as they work to meet intense demand.
They say the doses aren t coming in as fast as they d like. We are going to be running out of vaccine if our allocation doesn t increase, says interim health officer Dr. Rais Vohra.
To date, the Department of Public Health has received a total of 86,000 doses.