Orange County COVID-19 hospitalization set record at 1,893

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Orange County continues to break records of COVID-19 hospitalizations, increasing in number to 1,893, and authorities have reported an additional 3,490 viral infections.

The number of hospitalized people was a jump of 39 patients from Wednesday to Thursday. Of the 1,893 inpatients reported Thursday, 405 with a high pandemic were being treated in the intensive care unit.

Health officials in Orange County did not provide the updated COVID-19 number on Friday due to Christmas holidays.

Throughout the pandemic, a total of 138,310 COVIDs were identified and 1,782 died in the county.

New infections on Thursday were slightly lower than Wednesday, when the county reported 4,406 new cases.

The county reported 80 coronavirus-related deaths last week, up from 62 in the previous week to 41 and 26 in the previous two weeks, respectively.

Since Sunday, the county has reported 22 deaths.

Adjusted ICU bed availability in the county state remained zero, but as of Thursday the unadjusted figure was 7.9%. The state has created a metric tailored to reflect the differences in beds available to COVID-19 and non-coronavirus patients.

According to Frank Kim, CEO of Orange County, just because the county’s adjusted ICU rate can be zero does not mean that there are no beds available. He said the difference in rates reflects what is historically expected from a non-coronavirus emergency.

However, county officials emphasized that anyone taking emergency measures should dial 911.

County officials are preparing for another surge in an incident related to a holiday gathering piled up on a Thanksgiving-fueled wave.

“We are now facing a COVID spike from Thanksgiving,” said Lisa Bartlett, supervisor of Orange County, Wednesday. “And the bed capacity of the ICU is very low. Under normal COVID situations, many warning signals may not occur, but the difference between the previous surge and the current surge is that the surge capacity is excessive. And there is essentially no surge capacity. “

Authorities continue to warn the community to skip mixing households of all kinds for small or large rallies to celebrate the holidays, according to Bartlett.

“We are in the flu season and the number of cases of COVID is increasing day by day,” she said. “We are really running out of ICU beds.”

Hospital staff need to discuss the potential for rations if the system is overcome in patients, Bartlett said.

“We didn’t want to go as far as distributing healthcare and choosing the winner or loser of the hospital bed. We don’t want to be in that situation,” Bartlett said.

The Transportation Security Administration reported that security screening at airports exceeded one million passengers nationwide from last Friday to Sunday. The agency reported 954,782 travelers on Monday and 992,167 on Tuesday. This is much less than last year, but there could be a wave similar to Thanksgiving, as there were a similar number of travelers during the holiday preparation period. ..

The county has three mobile field hospitals, with 50 beds at the Orange UC Irvine Medical Center and 25 beds each at the Fountain Valley Regional Hospital and Los Alamitos Medical Center.

According to Kim, there are four more mobile field hospitals in the county, each with 25 beds.

The recently reopened Fairview Development Center in Costa Mesa is treating 21 patients with mild symptoms.

County officials received the Moderna vaccine on Wednesday. The large hospital system receives direct doses on Tuesday, and the county expects Wednesday’s dose to be distributed to smaller hospitals, Kim said.

Next week, county officials will debut an app developed to help doctors and nurses track vaccine recipients, ensure booster shots and monitor side effects.

Orange County supervisor Doug Chafy said the app is called Otena. This is a homage to Athena, the goddess of war.

Kim added that the county threshold has personal protective equipment available and the state “does a very good job at PPE.” When you request it, it will arrive in a few days … PPE is playing. “

There is also growing interest in take-out coronavirus test kits in the county, where 44% of ventilators are available. Last week, 17,000 kits were requested, but 19,000 people appeared directly on the county’s test supersite.

The moratorium on the transfer of patients from one hospital to another, which started last week, was extended again on Friday. Kim said it is being monitored daily to see if it can be lifted.

Meanwhile, county prison outbreaks increased from 908 on Tuesday and continued to be exacerbated by 968 infections. The county is waiting for the results of 675 tests. On Friday, the county had the prisoner’s first coronavirus death.

The county recorded 20,130 tests on Thursday, for a total of 1,926,712. The county is testing 606.1 per 100,000 population on average for 7 days, with a 7-day delay from 526.8 last week.

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

The adjusted daily case rate per 100,000 people in Orange County was 51.8 on the same Thursday as Wednesday. The positive rate was stable at 15.2%.

The county’s health inequal quartile positive rate, which measures cases in poor areas with high county influence, rose from 18.8% last week to 22.7%.

Orange County COVID-19 hospitalization set record at 1,893 Last changed: December 26, 2020 Along Contribution Editor

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