The number of cases of new people inflicted with COVID-19 in San Joaquin County is up slightly while those hospitalized continue to drop.

There were 509 new cases Monday since the last posting three days prior to reflect 167 new cases a day, roughly half of what was being reported daily three weeks ago but up 47 a day from a week ago.

 The number of people currently with the virus is 1,732.

Postings on the San Joaquin County COVID-19 dashboard on Monday as of 11:45 a.m. show 1,732 persons out of 760,000 San Joaquin County residents are currently positive with the virus although they are not necessarily sick. That is the number once you subtract the 14,399 people that health officials have determined to have recovered from the 16,131 cases since March

Many of the recovered may never have been ill.

The mask order and social distancing is designed to protect people from those who may not know they are carrying the virus and who may never show symptoms.

The number of deaths in San Joaquin County is now at 297. Of the 297 deaths only 14.1percent did not have pre-existing conditions such as asthma, cardiovascular disease, chronic lung disease, or diabetes.

The site stressed case data after July 27 “is severely delayed due to major technical issues in the State’s electronic reporting system. Data regarding deaths have not been impacted.” It is not clear if there are any other backlogged test results from San Joaquin County yet to be released by the state.

As of Monday there were 36 of 72 beds at Doctors Hospital in use.  Six — the same as a week ago — of the beds had COVID-19 patients with two in ICU beds. There were four in ICU beds at DHM a week ago.

 Kaiser Foundation Hospital of Manteca on Monday had 18 beds in use, 11 COVID-19 patients, and 4 using ICU beds.  That’s one more overall COVID patient and two less in ICU

On Monday there were 130 COVID-19 patients countywide, down 30 from last week.  Of those, 38 were using ICU beds compared to 58 last Monday.

COVID-19 patients account for 43 percent of the ICU load — down from 34 percent a week ago. There are 112 ICU beds in use of which 13 were converted beds. That means as a group hospitals in the county are operating at 113 percent of licensed ICU bed capacity.

To contact Dennis Wyatt, email dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com