Orange County 'Very Close' To Reopenings

SANTA ANA, CA — The spread of the coronavirus continues to slow in Orange County, and if the trend continues, the region may see schools and restaurants reopened by mid September.

Orange County remains in the ominous purple tier of the state's newly unveiled color-coded coronavirus monitoring system, but the region is poised to move to the red tier, enabling a series of reopenings, according to county officials. If the trend holds, and the county moves to the red tier, restaurants would soon be allowed to offer indoor dining at 25% capacity, and schools would be allowed to reopen.

"We are very close based on the last two weeks of data to almost be moving into red," said Orange County Supervisor Lisa Bartlett, who is also president of the California State Association of Counties.

County CEO Frank Kim explained Friday the state has said counties such as Orange that were off the state's watch list will get credit for the days they were off the list. That means that if the county's good trends continue as expected until Sept. 8, then the county can reopen schools for in-classroom instruction.

Orange County, along with several other counties that were off the watch list, were grandfathered in under the old system, Kim said. Under the new system, the county would have had to wait another two weeks after moving into another tier.

"We've got to hold there another week and then fingers crossed," Kim said.

The county is still able to apply for kindergarten through sixth grades waivers. Most of the waiver applications are coming from secular and other private schools, Kim said.

Already, hair salons and indoor malls at 25% capacity can reopen on Monday statewide, Bartlett said.

Most metrics were still improving with Saturday's updated numbers. Orange County reported 408 new cases of COVID-19 and 19 additional deaths Saturday, bringing the county's totals to 48,190 cases and 975 fatalities. The latest statistics show a drop in new cases, test positivity rates, hospitalizations and the rate of cases per 100,000 residents in Orange County

The rate of county residents testing positive for COVID-19 dropped from 5.2% Friday to 5%, below the state's desired threshold of 8%.

Hospitalizations continued to drop, falling from 351 on Friday to 341, with the number of intensive care unit patients at 99, according to the Orange County Health Care Agency.

The county's case rate per 100,000 residents over 14 days dropped from 82.4 to 79.6, which is well above the California Department of Public Health threshold of 25 per 100,000 residents.

The county has 32% of intensive care unit beds available, which is better than the state's 20% threshold. And the county's hospitals have 63% of their ventilators available, well above the state standard of 25%.

The change in three-day average of hospitalized patients stands at - 9.2%, much lower than the 10% state standard.

The OCHCA reported that 624,816 COVID-19 tests have been conducted, including 812 reported on Saturday. There have been 40,721 documented recoveries.

The new system, unveiled Friday by Gov. Gavin Newsom, focuses more on case and positivity rates because of breakthroughs in testing and the ability to get results more quickly, which allows public health professionals to more efficiently quarantine and address hot spots and surges.

Before, state officials focused on hospitalization and intensive-care unit beds because they wanted to be prepared for any surges that could hasten more deaths.

"It actually encourages more testing and contact tracing," Bartlett said of the new system.

The system is also more fair to higher-population counties, because the overall case counts were being held against them and now officials are focusing more on present-day case counts, Bartlett said.

The state also includes a "seven-day lag" as a failsafe to account for slower laboratories.

But the new system also focuses on a third criteria beyond case and positivity rates, and that is still vague, Bartlett said.

"When they define the third criteria more, that should bring more clarity to the counties on how they can operate within the guidelines, and which business sectors can open and to what capacity," Bartlett said.

City News Service and Patch Staffer Paige Austin contributed to this report.