SANTA ANA, Calif. (CNS) — Orange County Thursday saw a marked increase in COVID- 19 hospitalizations.
Hospitalizations jumped from 56 on Wednesday to 70 on Thursday, while the number of intensive care unit patients increased from 10 to 13.
Andrew Noymer, a UC Irvine professor of population health and disease prevention, told City News Service, "I'm not over the moon about it, but it's a little hard to say" if the increase is a cause for concern at this point.
"It'll be nice to keep an eye on the numbers" to see if there is a trend or if it is just a one-day blip in data, Noymer said.
"Los Angeles County has seen some modest increases as well," Noymer said. "I would like to see a running average over a few days. It does look like a big number and it's not fantastic, but I'm not freaking out yet."
The county won't have another update until next week as officials move to weekly instead of daily reporting. The county recently stopped reporting data on weekends and will now just do updates once a week.
"I don't endorse that," Noymer said. "It wouldn't kill them to print daily numbers. I think it should still be daily."
The county reported 54 new COVID-19 infections, pushing the cumulative total to 256,371.
Orange County on Wednesday announced it has reached its Fourth of July goal of 70% of its adult population receiving at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine.
As of Wednesday — the most recent statistics available — the county had 1,779,309 fully vaccinated residents. Of those, 1,663,883 received both doses and 244,757 had received one shot of the Moderna or Pfizer vaccine, which require two doses. Another 115,426 people have received the one-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine.
"I'd like to see it go higher" than 70%, Noymer said. "I'd like to see 70% of all those 12 and up ... We're never going to get to 100%, but I'd like to see 85% of the eligible population."
"Vaccination has proven to be a vital component in reducing test positivity rates in our county over the last several months," Dr. Clayton Chau, the OC Health Care Agency director and chief county health officer said in a news release Wednesday evening. "Since the reopening of our state on June 15, with many people no longer wearing masks or physically distancing, we've seen a slight increase in our seven-day positivity rate from 0.9% to 1.1% in the lowest HPI quartile areas. Of most interest is the fact that over 90% of new positive cases were among people who are not fully vaccinated. In fact, over 95% of persons hospitalized with COVID-19 had not been fully vaccinated. We know the vaccines work. We are continuing to offer them to our community and encourage everyone who are not vaccinated to do so."
Dr. Regina Chinsio-Kwong, deputy county health officer, warned residents about the newer, more contagious strains such as the Delta variant.
"We know that other parts of the world are experiencing a new surge in COVID cases, often related to the Delta strain, which has been found to be highly transmissible," Chinsio-Kwong said in a news release. "In recent weeks, the Delta strain represents an increasing proportion of positive tests in the US, California, as well as in Orange County. Studies have shown that current COVID-19 vaccines are also effective against the Delta strain, as well as other variants. This is another reason why we are encouraging people to get vaccinated if they haven't already done so."
Orange County Supervisor Don Wagner said it was "great" that the county reached its vaccination goal and commented that the county's latest statistics appear to be "holding well."
Wagner added, however, that he is being "told not to worry about a resurgence and the Delta variant, etcetera, but it's out there and I know we're keeping an eye on it."
"They're holding up pretty good," Orange County CEO Frank Kim told City News Service of the statistics on Wednesday.
"Is there a slight rise? Yes," Kim said, adding the increases are "not significant, so we've not had any issues that would cause Dr. Chau any concern."
As for the more contagious Delta variant, Kim said the number of cases in Orange County are "in the low 20s."
According to weekly state data released every Tuesday, the county's average daily new case rate per 100,000 residents edged up from 0.9 last week to 1, while the overall test positivity rate ticked up from 0.7% to 0.9%.
The county's Health Equity Quartile rate, which measures positivity in hot spots in disadvantaged communities, climbed from 0.7% last week to 1.1% this week.
The HCA logged another fatality, which occurred on Jan. 19, bringing the overall COVID-19 death toll for the county to 5,122.
The death toll now stands at 7 for June; 22 for May; 42 for April; 198 for March; 610 for February; 1,560 for January, the deadliest month of the pandemic; and 966 for December, the next deadliest.