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Health Nov 17, 2022
| Photo courtesy of geralt/Pixabay
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Orange County’s COVID-19 positivity rates and hospitalizations showed signs of creeping up again this week, according to data released Thursday by the Orange County Health Care Agency.
COVID-19-related hospitalizations went from 109 patients last Thursday to 143 as of Wednesday, with the number of patients in intensive care rising from 19 to 22.
Of those hospitalized, 68% are incompletely vaccinated or unvaccinated and 68.4% of the COVID-19 patients in intensive care units are incompletely vaccinated or unvaccinated.
The county logged 1,602 cases for the week, increasing the cumulative case count to 677,236.
The county’s test positivity rate ticked up from 5% to 5.1%, with the statistic going from 4% to 4.7% in the health equity quartile, which measures the communities hardest hit by the pandemic. The daily case rate per 100,000 increased from 4.8 to 5.3 on a seven-day average with a seven-day lag, and inched up from 4.9 to 5 in the adjusted daily case rate per 100,000 on a seven-day average with a seven-day lag.
The county logged six more fatalities, boosting the cumulative death toll to 7,561.
Three of the fatalities happened this month, increasing November’s death toll to four. The other three occurred last month, boosting October’s death toll to 58.
The positivity rate for those fully vaccinated with a booster went from 6.8 on Nov. 6 to 7.8 on Nov. 13, according to the latest data available. For those vaccinated with no booster, the rate went from 3.2 to 3.6. For those not vaccinated the rate went from 5.1 to 7.6.
The number of residents fully vaccinated went from 2,359,352 to 2,360,214. The number of residents who have received at least one dose is 216,802. The number of booster shots administered increased from 1,411,357 to 1,415,511.
The number of children up to 4 years old, who have received at least one dose is 16,076 with 8,965 fully vaccinated. Just 4.8% of the county’s population in the age group is fully vaccinated.
For 5- to 11-year-old children, 97,116 are fully vaccinated, about 36.7% of the age group. In the 12-to-17 age group, 69.9% are fully vaccinated.
