Orange County continues to break records for COVID-19 hospitalizations and ICU patients – NBC Los Angeles

Orange County reported 3,445 new cases of COVID-19 and 26 additional deaths on Saturday, bringing the county to a total of 119,822 cases and 1,760 deaths.

The county also continued the record trend of COVID-19 hospitalization, rising from 1,557 to 1,601 on Friday and 361 in the intensive care unit, up from 358 on Friday.

Both are new records. It’s a daily event that dates back to last week.

The county’s ICU bed availability remained zero for the “adjusted” metric and was 9.4% for the unadjusted number. The state has created a metric tailored to reflect the differences in beds available to COVID-19 and non-coronavirus patients.

The county recorded 21,203 COVID-19 tests on Saturday, for a total of 1,831,645 so far. There were 71,924 documented collections.

The county has tested 526.8 people per 100,000 on average for seven days, with a seven-day delay the highest ever.

Currently, all county indicators are included in the most restrictive purple layer of the state’s four-layer coronavirus surveillance system.

Prior to this month, the record of ICU patients in Orange County was 245 during the mid-July surge. Overall hospitalization has broken records daily since December 2.

Dr. Clayton Chau, director of the Orange County Healthcare Agency and chief health officer of the county, issued two orders this week to reduce the spread of coronavirus in nursing homes and to keep up with the quarantine period recommended by the United States. did. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Chau issued an order on Tuesday banning communal dining and group activities in elderly care facilities if a patient or staff member is diagnosed with the coronavirus. Group meals and activities can be resumed after two consecutive negative COVID-19 tests for all residents and employees separated by at least one week.

On Thursday, Chau also shortened the quarantine from 14 days to 10 days to follow new guidance from the CDC.

Frank Kim, CEO of Orange County, said the order was issued after state officials requested the county to help with nursing homes.

“According to our review, in many (facilities) they were eating together in the cafeteria and didn’t take as many precautions as recommended,” Kim said.

Kim said he was concerned about the increase in cases and hospitalization.

“All you can do is encourage people to change their behavior,” Kim said, other than establishing a mobile field hospital to strengthen testing and support a flood of medical centers. ..

Hospital executives and doctors told him, “Their greatest fear is Christmas,” Kim said.

“They are watching the trend, but the end of the tunnel is not yet visible,” Kim said. “They are worried. They are activating their surge plans. Some are demanding mobile hospital units and we are responding immediately.”

Whitney Ashton of NBCLA talks with healthcare contributor nurse Alice Benjamin about questions about the COVID-19 vaccine recently approved by the FDA for an emergency use authorization. As seen at NBCLA on Friday, December 18, 2020.

Orange County supervisor Lisa Bartlett has seen twice as many coronavirus cases as Orange County in neighboring counties and has zero patient capacity, so the OC will take over some of them. I pointed out that it is necessary.

The county officials received some good news when it was discovered that the county had received an additional dose of the new Pfizer vaccine.

“Some vials have additional doses, which is good because we’re getting more doses than we expected,” she said.

If the hospital is overwhelmed, doctors will have to make “difficult choices” when triaging patients, Bartlett said.

“We don’t want to reach that point. We want to serve every individual coming into the ER,” she said.

OCHCA issued an order this week to suspend the ability of hospitals participating in the 911 system to request the diversion of ambulances to other medical centers.

Dr. Carl Schurz, EMS Medical Director of the agency, said the surge in COVID-19 overwhelmed the emergency room and “almost all hospitals were diverted.”

“If you don’t do anything, the ambulance will quickly run out of hospitals where you can take patients,” Schultz said.

“Therefore, we temporarily stopped the ambulance detour. This puts more stress on the hospital, which spreads throughout the county and helps alleviate growing concerns about finding an ambulance hospital destination. I will. “

“As far as we know, this has never happened,” Schultz added.

The county has deployed a mobile field hospital to support the overflow. UC Irvine Medical Center, Fountain Valley Hospital and Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian have added 50 beds each, and Orange St. Joseph Hospital has added 25 beds.

The outbreak of the coronavirus is a dire situation for Angelino. LA County is currently the country’s pandemic center with over 596,000 cases and over 5,000 hospitalizations. ICU capacity is still down to 0%. Mekahlo Medina reports on NBC4 News on December 19, 2020.

Adjusted daily case rates per 100,000 people in Orange County rose from 30.3 to 42.7 last week on Tuesday, and positive rates rose from 10.6% to 13.2%. The county’s health inequal quartile positive rate, which measures cases in poor areas with high county influence, rose from 16.2% last week to 18.8%.

The county received the first shipment of Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine, and county officials expect to receive approximately 32,000 Moderna vaccines next week.

Meanwhile, the annual Christmas boat parade at Newport Beach was canceled this year, but it doesn’t discourage some boat owners from organizing an informal parade that begins Thursday night and lasts until Saturday. did.

Newport Beach spokesman John Pope said the city’s police have partnered with the Orange County Sheriff’s Office port patrol to provide enough personnel to assist boaters in an emergency. Said he would not stop the parade or disperse the crowd. Of the audience.

“As far as the city is concerned, it’s a matter of public security,” said the Pope. “Port patrol boats and lifeguard boats are on the water for safety and coordinate with the Orange County Sheriff’s Office to provide basic public security protection.”