Health & Fitness
Orange County's Hospitals Brace For More Patients As ICUs Fill
The winter onslaught of coronavirus is "not slowing down and we haven't hit the peak yet," Orange County CEO Frank Kim says.
ORANGE COUNTY, CA — Almost 100 more COVID-19 patients were admitted to Orange County's already stressed hospital system, with 10 more in intensive care as it continues its record-setting pace. This week has seen a sharp climb in county residents that are hospitalized due to coronavirus.
On Monday, hospitalizations increased from 1,709 and then rose again to 1,854 on Wednesday. Of those, intensive care patients rose from 390 Tuesday, to 394 Wednesday. Meanwhile, residents await further details on when they will be able to take the coronavirus vaccine. An estimated 77,076 residents have recovered from COVID-19 since March, according to the Orange County Health Care Agency.
Hospital workers across the county have begun their dosages of the two-part Pfizer vaccine, including two OC MemorialCare hospitals this week.
Find out what's happening in Orange Countyfor free with the latest updates from Patch.
Across Orange County, the coronavirus death toll increased by two to a total of 1,781 since the pandemic began. One of Tuesday's fatalities was an assisted living facility resident, OC Health Care reports.
Since Sunday, the county has reported 21 deaths.
Find out what's happening in Orange Countyfor free with the latest updates from Patch.
There were 4,406 new cases of the coronavirus diagnosed Wednesday, raising the total to 134,820.
The county's ICU bed availability remains zero in the "adjusted" metric but dropped from 10.2% Monday in the unadjusted category to 8.2% on Wednesday. The state created the adjusted metric to reflect the difference in beds available for COVID-19 patients and non-coronavirus patients.
Just because a county's adjusted ICU rate may be zero, it does not mean there are no beds available, Orange County CEO Frank Kim said. The difference in the rates reflects what is historically expected from non-coronavirus emergencies, he said.
County officials are encouraging anyone with a medical emergency to not refrain from dialing 911.
It was welcome news to receive a relatively lower number of coronavirus cases on Tuesday, but Kim said the hospitals continue to fill up.
"It's not slowing down, and we haven't hit the peak yet," Kim said. "And health officers in other counties when they talk about Christmas they're scared about further acceleration because the current surge hasn't ended."
Although hospitals may be preparing for the possibility of rationing care, "I'm not aware of any definitive decision made at any individual hospital," Kim said.
"Rationing health care is a really complex decision each hospital has to make based on staffing levels or capacity, and it's not something a county would order," Kim said.
The county has three mobile field hospitals with 50 beds at UC Irvine Medical Center in Orange, 25 at Fountain Valley Regional Hospital, and 25 at Los Alamitos Medical Center.
An earlier report of a mobile field hospital being provided to St. Joseph's Hospital in Orange was inaccurate. Still, the hospital has indicated the possibility it may need some soon.d.
County officials are expecting doses of vaccines from Moderna on Wednesday, Kim said. Larger hospital systems received doses directly on Tuesday, and the county expects Wednesday's doses to be distributed to smaller hospitals, Kim said.
At the Fairview Developmental Center in Costa Mesa, 21 patients with milder symptoms are being treated.
The county is doing OK on supplies of personal protective equipment, Kim said. The state "is doing a very good job with PPE," Kim said. "When we make a request, it arrives with a matter of days... the PPE is flowing."
Meanwhile, a group of nurses are striking Wednesday due to what they say are unsafe conditions and lack of PPE.
Read: Orange County Nurses Strike Claiming Unsafe Conditions Amid COVID
The county has also seen a rise in the take-home testing kits for coronavirus.
Last week, 17,000 kits were requested, compared with 19,000 showing up in person at the county's super sites.
A moratorium on diverting patients from one hospital to another initiated last week was extended again on Friday. Kim said it is being monitored daily to see if it can be lifted.
The county has 45% of its ventilators available.
Meanwhile, the county's jails' outbreak continues to widen, with 908 infections currently, up from 834 on Monday. The county is awaiting the results of 293 tests.
On Friday, the first jailed inmate in Orange County with COVID-19 died of complications from the virus.
Read: Cold Case Murder Suspect Is First OC Inmate To Die Of Coronavirus
Outbreaks in the county's nursing homes continue to rise, with 42 skilled nursing facilities and 40 elderly assisted living facilities reporting two or more positive cases within the last two weeks.
The county recorded 29,144 tests on Tuesday, for a total of 1,885,047. The county is testing 606.1 per 100,000 on a seven-day average with a seven- day lag, up from 526.8 last week.
All of the county's metrics now fall within the state's most- restrictive, purple tier of the state's four-tier coronavirus monitoring system.
Orange County's adjusted daily case rate per 100,000 rose Tuesday to 51.8, up from 42.7 last week. The positivity rate increased from 13.2% to 15.2%.
The county's Health Equity Quartile Positivity Rate, which measures the cases in highly affected, needier parts of the county, rose from 18.8% last week to 22.7%.
Across Orange County, new city cumulative cases were released Tuesday:
Aliso Viejo - 1067 Total Cases
Anaheim - 22871 Total Cases
Brea - 1475 Total Cases
Buena Park - 4093 Total Cases
Costa Mesa - 4405 Total Cases
Coto de Caza - 98 Total Cases
Cypress - 1468 Total Cases
Dana Point - 760 Total Cases
Fountain Valley - 1695 Total Cases
Fullerton - 6190 Total Cases
Garden Grove - 8351 Total Cases
Huntington Beach - 5388 Total Cases
Irvine - 4908 Total Cases
La Habra - 3538 Total Cases
La Palma - 412 Total Cases
Ladera Ranch - 444 Total Cases
Laguna Beach - 451 Total Cases
Laguna Hills - 828 Total Cases
Laguna Niguel - 1188 Total Cases
Laguna Woods - 178 Total Cases
Lake Forest - 2090 Total Cases
Los Alamitos - 535 Total Cases
Midway City - 384 Total Cases
Mission Viejo - 2169 Total Cases
Newport Beach - 2035 Total Cases
Orange - 6520 Total Cases
Placentia - 2353 Total Cases
Rancho Mission Viejo - 169 Total Cases
Rancho Santa Margarita - 850 Total Cases
Rossmoor - 90 Total Cases
San Clemente - 1466 Total Cases
San Juan Capistrano - 1415 Total Cases
Santa Ana - 26352 Total Cases
Seal Beach - 602 Total Cases
Silverado - 57 Total Cases
Stanton - 1708 Total Cases
Trabuco Canyon - 448 Total Cases
Tustin - 3135 Total Cases
Villa Park - 152 Total Cases
Westminster - 3562 Total Cases
Yorba Linda - 2055 Total Cases
Read also:
Get more local news delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts.
