Coronavirus By The Numbers In Riverside County

RIVERSIDE COUNTY, CA — The number of new coronavirus cases — and deaths — jumped again Wednesday in Riverside County, although health officials have warned the figures will continue to rise in coming weeks.

As of Wednesday afternoon, Riverside University Health System reported 1,179 positive cases and 32 deaths. The increase of 163 new cases and four deaths came over a 24-hour period.

The number of recovered patients rose from 67 Tuesday to 74 Wednesday.

Health officials have warned the virus "knows no boundaries," but many residents want to know which Riverside County regions are reporting the most infections. The county began making that information public more than a week ago, but some residents report they can't see the data on their devices.

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The city of Riverside continues to have the highest caseload, with 128 and one reported death. Moreno Valley trails behind with 121 cases and four deaths.

A Riverside skilled nursing facility has been the center of a COVID-19 outbreak, where there were 34 known cases of the virus among residents and 16 among workers. Read: 83 Nursing Home Patients Evacuated In Riverside: Coronavirus

In Southwest Riverside County, Temecula has the highest COVID-19 caseload with 54 and zero deaths. Murrieta has 47 cases and one death; Menifee — 41 cases and one death; Lake Elsinore — 34 cases and one death; Wildomar — 21 cases and one death; and Canyon Lake — four cases and zero deaths.

Nearby unincorporated areas are also reporting cases, with French Valley having the most at 13 and no reported deaths.

Like all hospitals across the region, Southwest Riverside County facilities have planned for a surge in cases; as of Wednesday the hospitals are managing their current caseload. The number of COVID-19 patients at each hospital was not available.

However, updated projections released Tuesday by health officials show the county remains on track to see its total number of cases double every 4.6 days. Projections also show that all currently set up ICU beds in the county could be full by April 14, with all regular beds set to follow suit by April 23.

A temporary 125-bed field hospital that has been set up at the Riverside County Fairgrounds to handle overflow of non-COVID-19 patients from area hospitals is staffed. It was announced late Wednesday afternoon that some of the evacuated skilled nursing facility residents were headed to the temporary hospital. The county has supplies for another 125-bed field hospital, but that facility has yet to be erected.

In the Coachella Valley, where the first coronavirus infections were reported, there are now 312 confirmed cases and 16 deaths. Palm Springs, Indio and Palm Desert lead in case counts, with 60, 58, and 51, respectively. The death tolls in those cities are eight, two, and two, respectively.

Inside Coachella Valley hospitals, data as of Tuesday show that both JFK Memorial and Desert Regional had room available for critical patients — 75 percent of the ICU beds are full at JFK Memorial, while Desert Regional was at 48 percent.

The hospitals have a combined total of 102 ICU beds, and 107 ventilators, along with surge plans to create 37 more ICU beds at JFK Memorial, according to Todd Burke, spokesman for Tenet Healthcare, which operates both hospitals.

Desert Regional, on the other hand, is already at capacity for its ICU beds, but has a surge plan in place for creating more regular beds if need be, Burke said.

In Rancho Mirage, Eisenhower Medical Center has a total of 403 beds available now and 141 patients as of Tuesday, hospital spokeswoman Lee Rice told City News Service, putting the hospital at 35 percent capacity. Rice said the hospital has 34 ICU beds.

Seventeen patients are currently being treated for COVID-19 at the hospital, Rice said, with 10 of them currently in the ICU. It was not immediately clear how many other ICU beds were filled up.

Like other all Riverside County hospitals, Eisenhower Medical Center has a surge plan in place. Rice said the hospital has the ability to expand to be able to care for 130 critical patients simultaneously.

"That's a huge increase in critical care capacity in the past three weeks," Rice said.

In the San Gorgonio Pass Area, the city of Banning has 46 COVID-19 cases and one death, while Beaumont has 23 cases and one death

To see a full map of cases countywide, click here.