The rate of coronavirus spread in Orange County continues to outpace most other areas in Southern California, but officials said Thursday they’re hopeful this month’s rollback of business reopenings will help suppress transmission.
Another 873 new infections and 11 virus-related fatalities were reported Thursday — slightly above the 804 new cases and 9 deaths per day O.C. has been averaging over the past week.
The numbers are significantly higher than the 722 new cases and 4.4 deaths per day the county was averaging the week before.
Countywide, more than 27,900 infections have been confirmed, and 466 people are known to have succumbed to the illness. Officials estimate less than half of those infected have recovered.
The county previously landed on the governor’s watchlist due to increasing hospitalizations. While hospitalizations have since stabilized, public health officials are now working to contain the elevated rate of COVID-19 transmission.
Dr. Clayton Chau, director of the O.C. Health Care Agency, pointed to the usual two-week lag in identifying coronavirus spread through diagnostic testing, and said he expects the county will soon see positive effects from the closure of indoor operations for restaurants ordered by the state on July 1.
“We are predicting that within two to three weeks from that day, we would be able to see a lower rate in terms of people who have a higher risk of contracting the virus in the community,” Chau said in a Thursday media briefing.
Fewer restaurants have been calling the health agency to report outbreaks among employees since the rollbacks, according to Chau. And, he said the county’s Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control visited 217 businesses over the past weekend and issued zero citations.
With more than 240 new infections per 100,000 residents in the past two weeks, O.C. is falling short of the state’s metric asking counties to keep new cases below 100 per 100,000 over the last 14 days. In Southern California, its rate of new infections is second only to San Bernardino County.
Over the past two weeks, O.C. also has the second-highest number of confirmed cases in any California county with 11,535, trailing far behind Los Angeles County’s 37,542 new infections.
O.C. also reported 120 deaths in that period, the third-highest number after Los Angeles and Riverside counties.
However, County Executive Officer Frank Kim said he doesn’t see O.C. “as an outlier within the larger counties in Southern California.”
The county is also failing on maintaining a low positivity rate for diagnostic testing. The state says it should be less than 10%, but Orange County’s now stands at 14.6. But officials say that’s largely because the county is focusing on testing those who are the most sick or at-risk.
“If you are concentrating on testing more people who are symptomatic, and people who most likely would have the virus, then you’re going to be able to identify a higher ratio of people who are confirmed as positive,” Chau said.
On Wednesday, the county’s largest testing site yet opened at the Anaheim Convention Center, and it expects to have the capacity to serve 1,200 people a day within two weeks. Another large center is planned for the O.C. fairgrounds in Costa Mesa, but an opening date has not been set.
Only people with symptoms of the respiratory illness are eligible for testing at the county’s publicly run sites. And testing will be prioritized for the following groups based on new guidelines released Tuesday by the state Department of Public Health: essential workers, people who’ve been in close contact with an infected person, and residents and employees of congregate living facilities will be tested first.
The hardest hit cities in O.C. remain Santa Ana and Anaheim, which have both recorded more than 4,500 cases. Garden Grove, Huntington Beach, Fullerton and Orange each have been tied to more than 1,000 infections.
The O.C. Board of Education this week approved a recommendation to reopen schools without masks or social distancing. Chau said he plans to have renewed conversations with the board after the governor issues new guidance for schools at noon Friday.
Chau says he and Supervisor Don Wagner were invited to address the panel, but were not involved in the final recommendation.
“Both Supervisor Wagner and I encouraged the county Board of Education to remain guided in their plan by the medical professionals,” he said. “It is important to reopen safely, when the epidemiological data makes sense.”
But the health director also said he doesn’t believe the solution will be “one-size-fits-all.”
“We really need to look at the data per city,” he said. “And that’s why we have been showing that, so that the school and the community, including the parents, would make the right decision for their geographical area.”
