SANTA ANA, Calif. (CNS) — The number of patients hospitalized with a coronavirus infection in Orange County decreased by eight to 249, according to the latest state numbers released Saturday.
What You Need To Know
- The county's number of COVID-related hospitalizations dropped from 346 as of last Thursday
- Many patients entered the hospital for other reasons and discovered they had COVID after a test at the hospital
- The Orange County Health Care Agency logged 2,246 new cases of COVID- 19 on Thursday, hiking the cumulative total to 702,870 since the pandemic began
- Influenza infections are "very high" in the state
Of those patients, 28 were being treated in intensive care, unchanged from the previous day's total.
The county's number of COVID-related hospitalizations dropped from 346 as of last Thursday. Many patients entered the hospital for other reasons and discovered they had COVID after a test at the hospital.
"I'm pleased and thankful the hospitalizations are down," Andrew Noymer, a UC Irvine professor of population health and disease prevention, told City News Service. Noymer noted that numbers of cases of respiratory syncytial virus, known as RSV, statewide are also markedly down.
"We're back down to sort of normal territory for winter RSV," Noymer said.
Influenza infections are "very high" in the state, Noymer said.
"All in all this winter is shaping up to be better than last winter," Noymer said. "I don't want to take any victory laps prematurely, but it is shaping up to be quite good."
Noymer noted that the most recent coronavirus variant, XBB.1.5, hasn't been detected in great numbers here yet.
"It's coming from sort of the northeast and working its way west so that's when the other shoe could drop," Noymer said. "We could have a wave in February or even March quite frankly."
The Orange County Health Care Agency logged 2,246 new cases of COVID- 19 on Thursday, hiking the cumulative total to 702,870 since the pandemic began. The agency also reported 36 additional fatalities linked to the virus, increasing the death toll to 7,742.
Most people who die with COVID-19 are elderly or have an underlying health condition.
The test positivity rate went from 15.1% last week to 15.2% and increased from 13.6% to 15.1% in the health equity quartile, which measures the communities hardest hit by the pandemic.
The daily case rate per 100,000 went from 13.7 to 13.8 on a seven-day average with a seven-day lag, and went from 15.1 to 14.1 in the adjusted daily case rate per 100,000 on a seven-day average with a seven-day lag.
The OCHCA reports COVID data every Thursday.
Of those hospitalized with COVID-19 in the county, 63.7% are unvaccinated or partly vaccinated. The ICU patients are 65% partly or unvaccinated.