SANTA ANA, Calif. (CNS) — Orange County's COVID-19 hospitalizations and case rates continued a sharp decline Tuesday, but reports of fatalities continued to flow in, with January reaching a death toll not seen since October.

The number of COVID-positive hospital patients in the county dropped from 934 to 872, with the number of intensive care unit patients dropping from 174 to 164, according to the latest state figures.

OC has 19% of its ICU beds available, according to the Orange County Health Care Agency. Local health officials get concerned when the level falls below 20%. The county has 59% of its ventilators available.

Of those hospitalized, 85% are unvaccinated and 87% in ICU are not inoculated, the OCHCA said.

Saturday marked the first day since Jan. 9 that hospitalizations fell below 1,000. The downward trend began on Jan. 18.

The county reported 10 more COVID-related fatalities Tuesday, hiking the cumulative death toll to 6,110 since the pandemic began. All the deaths logged Tuesday occurred in January, raising last month's death toll to 138. The most recent recorded fatalities occurred on Jan. 24 when two people died of virus-related causes.

December's death toll stands at 101, with 111 in November and 134 in October.

September's death toll stands at 197 and August's death toll is 182.

In contrast, the death toll before the delta variant fueled a late-summer surge was 31 in July, 19 in June, 26 in May, 47 in April, 202 in March and 620 for February. January 2021 remains the deadliest month of the pandemic, with a death toll of 1,598, ahead of December 2020, the next-deadliest with 985 people lost to the virus.

One of the dead reported Tuesday was a skilled nursing facility resident, raising the overall toll in that category to 1,237. The death toll for assisted living facility residents is 651.

The OCHCA also reported 1,229 new positive COVID tests Tuesday, bringing the county's cumulative total to 518,638.

Outbreaks — defined as three or more infected residents — decreased from 45 to 38 at assisted living facilities from Jan. 26 to Jan. 31, the most recent data available, and remained at 30 for skilled nursing facilities.

The county's adjusted daily new case rate per 100,000 residents dipped from 130.8 on Monday to 117.1. The testing positivity rate dropped from 18.2% to 17.9%, and fell from 16.2% to 15.5% in the health equity quartile, which measures underserved communities hardest hit by the pandemic.

The case rate per 100,000 people decreased from 93.2 on Jan. 15 to 69.2 on Jan. 22 for residents who were fully vaccinated with a booster shot; from 210.4 on Jan. 15 to 126.6 on Jan. 22 for the fully vaccinated without a booster; and from 304.4 to 194 for those not fully vaccinated.

Dr. Jennifer Jolley, an OB/GYN from UCI Health, said a recent study out of Scotland showed that unvaccinated pregnant moms are more likely to require hospitalization when infected with COVID-19 and face a four-times higher risk of stillbirth than seen during the delta wave. The risk of requiring a ventilator for unvaccinated pregnant women is reportedly about 15 times higher than for the inoculated.

Vaccine hesitancy among pregnant women persists with about 42% of expectant mothers inoculated, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"I understand and expect that women and families will be hesitant to accept a new medication or vaccine," Jolley told City News Service.

But this recent study shows that the vaccines are safe, she said.

"We really want to continue on the mission of helping families understand that COVID causes more severe disease in pregnancy," she said. "Women are more likely to die and more likely to be on a ventilator and more likely to have severe symptoms carrying a fetus if they get infected."

Jolley said pregnant women are also more likely to get infected with the virus as well. The Scottish study showed that 90% of the pregnant patients in hospitals and in critical care were unvaccinated, Jolley said.

The omicron variant is viewed as less severe than delta, but it is still causing severe disease for expectant mothers, Jolley said.

She stressed that the vaccines do not penetrate the placenta, but the antibodies from the mother are conveyed to the fetus. That is what is known as "passive immunity" for the unborn, she added.

"I've had some patients who had the vaccine during pregnancy," Jolley said, adding that many others were inoculated before conception.

Now doctors are advising already vaccinated expectant mothers to get a booster shot, she added.