In a now nearly routine increase, statistics that followed the rate and spread of coronavirus cases in Orange County broke records again this week, according to a state update released Tuesday, January 5th.
The province’s case was 67.8 cases per day per 100,000 inhabitants, compared to 53.5 cases per 100,000 last week for a fifth consecutive week.
By comparison, the rate of new cases during the summer boom peaked at about 27 cases per 100,000.
The test of positivity – the share of positive swabs of all applied – climbed to 17.1% from 16.9% last week. Recent rates are much higher than a relatively modest 3.6% test positivity recorded in early November.
Health equity – which hit the province’s positivity hard and generally tests low-income neighborhoods – fell to 23.4% from 24.2% last week, indicating a slight improvement in areas with less access to health care.
But the focus is really on hospitals that are filling the capacity of recent times with the sickest of the community.
About 5% of the intensive care units for adults in Orange County were manned Monday and ready to take patients – COVID-19 or not – according to the Health Care Agency.
“We need to prepare for the next two weeks because there will be more people in need of hospitalization,” said Dr Clayton Chau, director of the health care agency and health officer in the province.
Orange County is one of many in California that has a long-term increase in cases, Chau said. Due to the holidays, it is not yet clear how bad the situation will be due to the bottlenecks of the test and test results.
“I’m only been working on what’s coming for a week or two,” Chau said, adding that although some public health experts see the rate slowing down, it will likely be a short time before a multitude of cases occur. through holiday gatherings.
Chau said the giant pandemic continues as people travel and attend dinners and parties on Christmas and New Year’s Eve. Southern California is still directly under the strictest local home orders of the state banning public and private gatherings and restricting business and public sector operations.
He probably said that people are relaxing their masking and social distance habits because they have heard that vaccinations have started.
“The vaccine gives us hope – (it) definitely gives me hope,” Chau said, but at the same time, coronavirus-related hospitalizations have never been higher in Orange County, and skeptics have to drive through an emergency room themselves.
“People who take it with a cavalier attitude think of your parents, think of your grandparents,” Chau said. “I just beg people to think of the vulnerable people in our community.”
To help the situation, Orange County residents should be tested as soon as they think they have been exposed to COVID-19, Chau said, so they can see their doctor before bad symptoms occur and stay out of an emergency room.