Orange County’s COVID-19 hospitalizations continued steadily gliding down this week, but five deaths were logged in April, the first for this month, according to data released Thursday by the Orange County Health Care Agency.
The number of patients hospitalized with COVID-19 infections stood at 103 last Thursday, but was down to 79 as of Wednesday. The number of patients in intensive care remained as 12, the same as a week ago.
The county logged 10 more fatalities, boosting the overall death toll to 8,100.
Of those fatalities, five occurred this month, the first for April. Last week, 20 additional deaths were added to March and this week five more were logged. March’s death toll stands at 71.
February’s death toll stands at 72 while January’s is 129.
Of those hospitalized in the county, 61.1% are unvaccinated or partly vaccinated. The ICU patients are 62.2% partly vaccinated or unvaccinated.
The number of residents fully vaccinated increased to 2,370,974. The number of residents who have received at least one dose is 227,409. The number of booster shots administered increased to 1,457,481.
The number of children up to 4 years old who have received at least one dose inched up to just 19,324 with 12,600 fully vaccinated. Just 6.7% of the county’s population in the age group is fully vaccinated.
For 5- to 11-year-old children, 97,705 are fully vaccinated, about 36.9% of the age group. In the 12-to-17 age group, 69.7% are fully vaccinated.
The test positivity rate stands at 3.9% and is at 3.4% in the health equity quartile, which measures the communities hardest hit by the pandemic.
The positivity rate for those fully vaccinated with a booster went from 3.4 on April 2 to 2.6 on April 9. For those vaccinated with no booster, the rate went from 1.7 to 1.6. For those not vaccinated the rate went from 5.5 to 5.
The daily case rate per 100,000 stands at 2.2 on a seven-day average with a seven-day lag and 2.1 in the adjusted daily case rate per 100,000 on a seven-day average with a seven-day lag.
The county logged 664 new cases of COVID-19, increasing the total since the start of the pandemic to 717,818.
The OCHCA reports COVID-19 data every Thursday.