The Kern County Public Health Department confirmed Tuesday more than 500 new cases of COVID-19 in Kern, bringing the total to 124,943 cases.

Health officials also confirmed three new deaths, bringing the total number of deaths in Kern County to 1,465 COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic.

As of Aug. 29, 725,313 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine have been administered to Kern County residents.  As of Tuesday, 45.8 percent of Kern’s eligible population have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19.

In all of California, Governor Gavin Newsom announced Tuesday more than 80 percent of eligible Californians 12 and older have received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine.

In the most recent three weeks, there has been a 32.5 percent increase in first doses of the COVID-19 vaccines administered in Kern County.

“We are encouraged to see first dose vaccination administration rates continuing to rise in our community,” said Brynn Carrigan, Director of Kern County Public Health. “We continue to urge everyone to use all available tools to protect against COVID-19 including getting vaccinated, masking, physical distancing, washing your hands, staying home when you are sick or been exposed, and staying in overall good health by eating well and regularly exercising.”

Newsom encouraged unvaccinated Californians to take action to protect themselves and their communities from the Delta variant and do their part to help bring an end to the pandemic by getting vaccinated.

“Getting vaccinated is the key to protecting against COVID-19 and the faster-spreading Delta variant – it’s how we end this thing.” said Governor Newsom. “California has put more shots in arms than any other state. We’ve made incredible progress vaccinating our population in a remarkably short amount of time, and our work continues to close the gap in our most impacted communities.”

According to the Kern County Public Health dashboard, 133 cases of COVID-19 have been traced to be the Delta variant.

As of Aug. 30, Kern County had 270 COVID-19 related hospitalizations and 51 were in the intensive care unit.

To stay up to date on COVID-19 and to view an interactive map of COVID-19 testing and vaccination locations visit https://kernpublichealth.com/2019-novel-coronavirus/.