NewsCoronavirus

Actions

Number of COVID hospitalizations dip slightly, still a concern

Coronavirus Kern County
Posted

BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KERO) — Dignity Health officials held a weekly press briefing Wednesday morning and announced the number of hospitalizations and patients in the ICU with COVID dipped slightly, but still remains a concern.

Despite the fact that Kern County's vaccination rate is just over 50% local officials don't think it will result in more severe mandates.

"I think if they were going to they would have. Everybody made up their mind, that either gonna get vax or not. Not sure instituting measures to stop the spread is going to be happening at this point going forward," said Bruce Peters, CEO and president of Mercy Hospital.

The latest numbers posted to the Kern County COVID dashboard showed another 477 positive test results with five new deaths attributed to the virus. The number of delta variant cases up to 531 from 507.

,

Weather

Daily Forecast

View Hourly Forecast

Day

Conditions

HI / LO

Precip

Tuesday

12/30/2025

Cloudy

54° / 45°

4%

Wednesday

12/31/2025

AM Showers

52° / 49°

47%

Thursday

01/01/2026

AM Showers

59° / 48°

58%

Friday

01/02/2026

Cloudy

64° / 55°

10%

Saturday

01/03/2026

AM Showers

59° / 50°

36%

Sunday

01/04/2026

AM Clouds/PM Sun

58° / 46°

10%

Monday

01/05/2026

Partly Cloudy

57° / 45°

10%

Tuesday

01/06/2026

Mostly Cloudy

55° / 44°

24%