Fresno County continues to see decrease in COVID-19 hospitalizations

FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) -- Fresno County has reported 323 more COVID cases in the last three days -- numbers that have health experts a bit concerned as they continue to monitor the impact of the virus's latest strain.

"It's estimated that the BA.2 variant is now approximately 75% of what we're seeing in California," says Dr. Rais Vohra.

With the emergence of at-home COVID test kits, health experts say it's a challenge to catch all those who test positive. However, hospitalizations from COVID continue to decline across Fresno County.

"We're probably missing a lot of positive tests," Dr. Vohra said. "Even though our numbers look really rosy right now, you have to keep in mind there is a hidden number of COVID patients that are still circulating among us."

Local health experts continue to recommend masking because they're not seeing all of the COVID cases because of at-home testing and because they say the flu is making a comeback following a couple of years without the typical exposure to winter viruses.

"We are seeing a big uptick in the number of systematic people that are coming for care in the emergency department and now coming into the hospitals," Dr. Vohra said. "And we're seeing a pretty sharp rise just in the last week with influenza."