SANTA ANA, Calif. (CNS) — Orange County’s COVID-19-infected patient counts continued slowing down along with positivity rates, according to data released Monday by the Orange County Health Care Agency.
The number of COVID-positive patients in Orange County hospitals declined from 252 Saturday to 230 Sunday with the number of intensive care unit patients dropping from 41 to 40, according to the latest figures.
The county also reported 991 new positive COVID tests and 39 additional deaths, raising the cumulative totals to 538,594 and 6,609, respectively.
The county had 25.6% of its ICU beds available and 64.6% of its ventilators as of Monday. Local health officials become concerned when the level of ICU beds falls below 20%.
Of those hospitalized, 84% are unvaccinated and 86% in an intensive care unit are not inoculated, according to the Orange County Health Care Agency.
The OCHCA does not report COVID data on weekends.
Of the deaths logged Monday, 30 occurred this month, raising February’s death toll to 136. Eight occurred last month, boosting January’s death toll to 487. One occurred in December, increasing that month’s death toll to 108.
November’s death toll stands at 112, October’s at 136, September’s at 200 and August’s at 186.
In contrast, the death toll before the delta variant fueled a late-summer surge was 31 in July, 20 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 1,600, ahead of December 2020, the next-deadliest, with 986 people lost to the virus.
Of the deaths logged Monday, three were skilled nursing facility residents and two were assisted living facility residents, raising the death tolls in those categories to 1,283 and 677, respectively.
The case rate per 100,000 people decreased from 14.9 Friday to 12.6 Monday. The testing positivity rate dropped from 4.1% to 3.8%, and ticked down from 3.3% to 3.2% in the health equity quartile, which measures underserved communities hardest hit by the pandemic.
The case rate per 100,000 people decreased from 14.5 on Feb. 12 to 8.7 on Saturday for those fully vaccinated with a booster shot; from 17.4 to 10 for those fully vaccinated with no booster; and 30.1 to 17.9 for those not fully vaccinated.