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Orange County’s COVID-19 hospitalizations and positivity rates continued gliding down, according to figures released Tuesday by the Orange County Health Care Agency.
The number of patients hospitalized with COVID-19 dropped from 224 on Friday to 220 as of Monday, with the number of patients in intensive care declining from 31 to 25. The county has 28.7% of its ICU beds available, above the level of 20% when officials grow concerned.
Of the patients hospitalized, 71.2% are incompletely vaccinated or unvaccinated. The rate is at 71.8% in the ICU.
It is difficult to determine how many patients were admitted directly for COVID-19 from those who tested positive after admittance for some other ailment, but from Aug. 1-17, 122 patients were admitted directly for COVID-19 who were incompletely or unvaccinated, four had received booster shots and five completed the primary series of two shots, according to the OCHCA.
The county logged 1,664 more infections, raising the cumulative figure since the pandemic began to 658,788. The county also logged six more fatalities, raising its cumulative death toll to 7,350.
Since Aug. 19, the county’s death August coronavirus toll has jumped up from 20 to 59, and from 109 to 117 for July. The last month the count had more than 100 deaths was in February when 347 died.
The OCHCA provides regular COVID updates on Tuesdays and Fridays.
The county’s test positivity rate dropped from 14.2% Thursday to 12.4% Monday, and dropped from 16.3% to 14.2% in the health equity quartile, which measures the communities hardest hit by the pandemic, according to the agency.
The county’s daily case rate per 100,000 people decreased from 20.6 to 16.9 on a seven-day average with a seven-day lag, and from 20.3 to 17.4 for the adjusted rate, also with a seven-day average and seven-day lag.
The seven-day case rate per 100,000 for fully vaccinated residents who received a booster went from 18.4 on Aug. 21 to 13 on Aug. 28. The rate for those fully vaccinated with no booster went from 11.5 to 7.9, and from 21.9 to 15.8 for not fully vaccinated residents.
The number of residents fully vaccinated increased from 2,343,538 last week to 2,345,356 Tuesday, according to the OCHCA. The number of residents who have received at least one dose was at 207,414. The number of booster shots administered rose from 1,372,534 to 1,375,422.
The number of children up to 4 years old, who have received at least one dose stands at 8,738 with 3,152 fully vaccinated, which represents just 6% of the county’s population in the age group.
For 5- to 11-year-old children, 95,465 are fully vaccinated, about 41% in that age group. In the 12-to-17 age group, 76% are fully vaccinated.
