The record trend of COVID-19 hospital admissions 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 previous day.
Both are new records – a daily occurrence dating back to early December.
Six of the 15 deaths reported Sunday were residents of skilled nursing facilities, and another six were skilled nursing staff. The province has registered a total of 632 COVID-19 fatalities in skilled nursing facilities and an additional 165 deaths in assisted living facilities.
The availability of the ICU bed in the province remained zero in the “adjusted” measure and was 12.1% in the unadjusted number. The state created the modified statistic to reflect the difference in beds available for COVID-19 patients and non-coronavirus patients.
The province registered 20,198 COVID-19 tests on Sunday for a total of 1,851,843 to date. There are 72,627 documented recoveries.
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The province is testing 526.8 people per 100,000 on a seven-day average with a seven-day delay, which is a record high.
All of the county’s statistics now fall within the most restrictive, purple tier of the state’s four-tier coronavirus control system.
Prior to this month, the record for ICU patients in Orange County was 245 during the mid-July peak. Overall hospital admissions have been breaking records daily since December 2.
Dr. Clayton Chau, the director of the Orange County Health Care Agency and the county’s chief health officer, issued two orders this week in an effort to reduce the spread of the coronavirus in nursing homes and follow suit with regard to the quarantine duration recommended by the US. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Chau issued an injunction on Tuesday banning joint dining and group activities in residential care facilities for the elderly when a patient or staff member is diagnosed with the coronavirus. The group dinner and activities can be resumed after two consecutive rounds of COVID-19 testing with all residents and staff returning negative at least one week apart.
On Thursday, Chau also shortened quarantines from 14 days to 10 days to follow the CDC’s new guidelines.
Orange County CEO Frank Kim said the order came about after government officials asked the county to help the nursing homes.
“Based on our review, it was found that they ate together in dining rooms in many (the facilities) and did not take as many precautions as recommended,” Kim said.
Kim said he was concerned about the rising number of cases and hospital admissions.
In addition to speeding up testing and setting up mobile field hospitals to help the crowded medical centers, Kim said, “All you can do is beg people to change their behavior.”
Hospital administrators and doctors have told him, “Their greatest fear is Christmas,” said Kim.
“They look at the trend and they don’t see the end of the tunnel yet,” said Kim. ‘They are concerned. They activate their peak flow plans. Various requests for mobile hospital wards and we respond immediately. ‘
Lisa Bartlett, Orange County supervisor, noted that some neighboring counties are seeing double the number of coronavirus cases Orange County has and that there is no capacity for patients, so OC will likely have to take over some.
County officials got some good news when it was discovered that the county was receiving additional doses of the new Pfizer vaccine.
“Some of the vials have extra doses,” she said, “so we’re getting more doses than expected, so that’s a good thing.”
When hospitals are overwhelmed, doctors will have to make “tough choices” when triaging patients, Bartlett said.
“We don’t want to get that far,” she said. “We want to serve everyone who comes to the ER.”
The OCHCA issued an order this week suspending the ability of hospitals participating in the 911 system to request a diversion of ambulances to other medical centers.
Dr. Carl Schultz, the EMS medical director, said the emergency departments were so overwhelmed by the COVID-19 spike that “almost all hospitals went on distraction.”
“If nothing was done, ambulances would soon run out of hospitals to transport their patients,” said Schultz.
“That’s why we have temporarily suspended ambulance diversion. While this will put some additional strain on hospitals, it will spread this across the county and help ease escalating concerns about finding hospital destinations for ambulances.”
Schultz added, “To our knowledge, this has never happened before.”
The province has rolled out mobile field hospitals to assist with the flood. UC Irvine Medical Center, Fountain Valley Hospital and Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian each received 50 additional beds, and St. Joseph’s Hospital in Orange added 25 additional beds.
Orange County’s adjusted daily number of cases per 100,000 rose from 30.3 the week before to 42.7 on Tuesday, with the positivity rate increasing from 10.6% to 13.2%. The county’s Health Equity Quartile Positivity Rate, which measures cases in hard-hit, more needy parts of the county, rose from 16.2% last week to 18.8%.
The county has received its first shipment of the Pfizer coronavirus vaccine, and district officials are expecting about 32,000 doses of the Moderna vaccine next week.
Meanwhile, the annual Christmas Boat parade in Newport Beach was canceled this year, but that didn’t stop some boat owners from hosting an unofficial parade that started Thursday night and lasted through Saturday.
John Pope, a Newport Beach spokesperson, said city police are working with the Orange County Sheriff’s Department Harbor Patrol to provide enough personnel to assist boaters in emergencies, but they will not try to stop the parade or crowds. split spectators.
“As far as the city is concerned, it’s a matter of public safety,” said Pope. “Harbor patrols and lifeboats are on the water for security purposes and in consultation with the Orange County sheriff to provide basic public safety protection.”
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