CALIFORNIA AGRICULTURAL COUNTIES

 You'll doubtless recall from our posts last summer that the agricultural counties of California--notably the "Big Four" (Fresno, Tulare (where I live), Kings and Kern) were 'out of control'     And so was California.

Recall, for example, the posts from June 7, July 6, and July 13.

Well, California just had its 'biggest week yet' in terms of New Cases--73,877 vs 68,253 in mid-July.   A piece of good news is that the state-wide death-rate has fallen nearly in half.   But, in common with nearly every state in America, the New Case Rate is at an all-time high.

The "Big Four" agricultural counties are down 60% in New Case rates, while California is UP 7%.   So, that is good news to be sure.  Moreover, the Death rate is also down by nearly 50%, like all of CA.  

Back then, the 4 Ag Counties (with 6.3% of CA population, had 15.9% of New Cases and 4.9% of deaths).  Today, the numbers for the Ag Counties are much more aligned with CA's total population, in fact better across the board--6.3% population, 6.1% of cases, and 4.3% of deaths.

So, one might ask--what changed?   Did the local residents "wise up"?   Did other CA counties forget what this is all about?  Or are these pretty random, and it is futile to attempt to find cause and effect?

A big change for our counties is that early on (well before either time-period shown), we had an unusual percentage of folk afflicted in nursing homes, food processing plants, and prisons.   More recently, and for both periods shown, the basic driver has been 'community spread'--but this is true state-wide.   So, in truth, I have no thesis for why these improvements in our local counties, but THANK GAWD it's true.