UC Irvine Tackles Coronavirus Trends In Orange County

IRVINE, CA — UC Irvine has launched a new coronavirus statistics site that compares five counties statewide, it was reported Monday.

The site features bar graphs of data since April 30 showing statistics from Alameda, Los Angeles, Orange, San Diego and Santa Clara counties.

It also features maps showing the spread of coronavirus, and what happened when the each county relaxed their stay at home orders.

The UCI scientists chose those five counties to reflect two counties struggling with the most cases — Orange and Los Angeles —and Alameda and Santa Clara in Northern California, which have been doing better, said Suellen Hopfer, an assistant professor of public health at UCI.

The five were "picked for the contrast" and the scientists did not want to "overwhelm people with too much information in one graph," according to Hopfer, who noted the graphs show Orange County following a similar trajectory to Los Angeles County.

"We do see things got worse in June and July after the lockdown was relaxed," Hopfer said. "But it is leveling off, which is good. However, the deaths are trending upward, which is not great."

Orange County CEO Frank Kim said the most apt comparison to his county is San Diego County in terms of population and density.

Kim noted that Orange County is one of the few statewide that breaks down numbers of skilled nursing facility deaths.

"Others don't provide that level of granularity," he said.

As local school officials prepare for classes to begin, county officials are tabulating the number of coronavirus cases by various age groups.

City News Service contributed to this report.