Kern County Public Health officials reported 3,600 total COVID-19 cases on Thursday. That is a new daily average of about 80.
In addition, there was a new COVID-19 related death, bring the total to 58. Nearly 2,500 residents have recovered, meaning 96 percent are either fully recovered or recovering from home. More than 40,000 or 90 percent of tests have come back negative.
During the briefing, officials also addressed whether they think the Kern High School District should be holding graduation ceremonies.
"We need to be careful as we see that COVID-19 isn't going away. It's still here. We have concerns about ICU beds and hospitalizations," explained Health Director Matt Constantine. "We think that a drive-thru sort of graduation is probably the best if you want to do anything. But anytime we have any sort of event or gathering that could potentially expose more people or could tax the hospital system, we need to be cautious and we need to postpone those events or cancel until we have better guidance from the state."
