Just four years ago, COVID-19 had taken a place among the leading causes of death in the San Joaquin Valley, right along with heart disease, cancer, Alzheimer’s and strokes. In 2021, in the peak of the coronavirus pandemic, the disease claimed nearly 6,400 lives across the eight-county region.

The virus, which first emerged in China in 2019, circulated worldwide in 2020, and the first confirmed cases in the San Joaquin Valley surfaced in March 2020. The rapid spread of the virus in California and the U.S. touched off a two-year frenzy of public health measures, including various stages of business and school closures, mandates to wear masks in public and social-distancing restrictions intended to slow its circulation in the population before the first vaccines were approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in late 2020.

The World Health Organization declared an end to the global pandemic emergency in May 2023, and COVID-19 has faded from its status as one of the leading killers to become “endemic” – something that appears destined to remain in low-level circulation, almost a muted part of the cultural background as it claims fewer and fewer lives.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that from early 2020 through mid-May 2025, nearly 13,350 deaths are attributed to COVID-19 across Fresno, Kern, Kings, Madera, Merced, San Joaquin, Stanislaus and Tulare counties, including during the vicious 2021 peak:

  • 2020: 4,036 deaths Valleywide.
  • 2021: 6,389 deaths.
  • 2022: 2,067 deaths.
  • 2023: 505 deaths.
  • 2024: 304 deaths.
  • 2025 (through mid-May): 42 deaths.

For the four-year period from 2020 through 2023, the coronavirus ranked as at least the fifth-leading cumulative cause of death in each of the Valley’s counties before tapering off in 2024 and 2025.

The interactive chart below shows the rise and fall of COVID-19 deaths county-by-county in the Valley since 2020.

Tim Sheehan is the Health Reporting Fellow at the nonprofit Central Valley Journalism Collaborative. The fellowship is supported by a grant from the Fresno State Institute for Media and Public Trust. CVJC student research assistant Lauren Aiello contributed to this report. Contact Sheehan at tim@cvlocaljournalism.org.