The trend of establishing COVID-19 hospital records in the county continued, with 1,682 – a jump from 1,601 on Saturday – and 375 coronavirus patients in intensive care units, up from 361 the day before.
Both are new recordings – a daily event dating back to early December.
Six of the 15 deaths reported on Sunday were residents of qualified healthcare institutions, and another six were qualified healthcare staff members. The county recorded a total of 632 COVID-19 deaths at qualified health care facilities and another 165 deaths at health care facilities.
The availability of the ICU bed of the county remained zero in the “adjusted” metric and was 12.1% in the unadjusted number. The state created the adjusted metric to reflect the difference in beds available for patients with COVID-19 and patients without coronavirus.
The county registered 20,198 COVID-19 tests on Sunday for a total of 1,851,843 so far. There were 72,627 documented recoveries.
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The county tests 526.8 people per 100,000 on an average of seven days, with a delay of seven days, which is a historic level.
All county values now fall within the most restrictive, purple state level of the four-level coronavirus monitoring system.
Prior to this month, the record for intensive care patients in Orange County was 245 during the mid-July increase. General hospitalizations have broken daily records since December 2.
Dr. Clayton Chau, director of the Orange County Health Care Agency and the county’s chief health officer, issued two orders this week in an attempt to reduce the spread of coronavirus in nursing homes and follow the example of durations. quarantine recommended by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
On Tuesday, Chau issued an order banning communal dining and group activities in residential care facilities for the elderly when a patient or staff member is diagnosed with coronavirus. The meal and group activities can resume after two consecutive rounds of COVID-19 tests of all residents and employees at a distance of at least one week return negatively.
On Thursday, Chau also shortened quarantines from 14 days to 10 days to follow the new guidelines from the CDC.
Orange County CEO Frank Kim said the order came after state officials asked the county to help nursing homes.
“Based on our review, it appeared that in many of the facilities they ate together in the living room and did not take as many recommended precautions,” Kim said.
Kim said he was concerned about the increased number of cases and hospitalizations.
Beyond stepping up tests and setting up mobile field hospitals to help spill medical centers, Kim said, “All you can do is beg people to change their behavior.”
Hospital directors and doctors told her that “their biggest fear is Christmas,” Kim said.
“They’re looking at the trend and I still don’t see the end of the tunnel,” Kim said. “They are worried. They are activating their overvoltage plans. Several are calling for mobile hospital units and we will respond immediately.”
Lisa Bartlett, the Orange County supervisor, mentioned how some neighboring counties see double the cases of coronavirus that Orange County has and are at zero capacity for patients, so the OC will probably have to take some of them.
County officials received good news when it was discovered that the county had received additional doses of the new Pfizer vaccine.
“Some of the vials have extra doses,” she said. “So we’re getting more doses than we anticipated, so that’s a good thing.”
If hospitals are overwhelmed, then doctors will have to make “difficult choices” when sorting patients, Bartlett said.
“We don’t want to get to that point,” she said. “We want to serve every person in an emergency.”
This week, OCHCA issued an order suspending the capacity of hospitals participating in the 911 system to request a diversion of ambulances to other medical centers.
Dr. Carl Schultz, the medical director of the EMS agency, said that the emergency rooms became so overwhelmed by the increase in COVID-19 that “almost all hospitals were on their way”.
“If nothing is done, ambulances will soon run out of hospitals that could take patients,” Schultz said.
“Therefore, we have temporarily suspended the diversion of ambulances. Although this will put additional emphasis on hospitals, it will spread throughout the county and help alleviate the growing concern about finding hospital destinations for ambulances.”
Schultz added: “As far as we know, this has never happened before.”
The county has launched mobile field hospitals to help overcome it. UC Irvine Medical Center, Fountain Valley Hospital and Hoag Presbyterian Memorial Hospital received another 50 beds each, and St. Joseph of Orange Hospital received another 25 beds.
The adjusted daily rate of daily cases per 100,000 increased on Tuesday from 30.3 the previous week to 42.7, the positivity rate increasing from 10.6% to 13.2%. The positivity rate of the quartiles in the county’s health capital, which measures cases in the most affected and needy parts of the county, rose from 16.2% last week to 18.8%.
The county has received its first shipment of Pfizer coronavirus vaccine, and county officials expect about 32,000 doses of Moderna vaccine next week.
Meanwhile, Newport Beach’s annual Christmas boat parade has been canceled this year, but that hasn’t discouraged some boat owners from holding an informal one that began Thursday night and is scheduled to run through Saturday.
John Pope, a Newport Beach spokesman, said city police are working with the Orange County Sheriff’s Department’s port patrol to provide enough staff to help navigators in any emergency, but will not try to stop the parade or stop. separates the crowds from the spectators.
“As far as the city is concerned, it’s a public safety issue,” the pope said. “The port patrol and lifeboats are on the water for safety reasons and are coordinating with the sheriff in Orange County to provide basic public safety protections.”
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