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Spencer Custodio |
Orange County coronavirus patients are heading to hospitals this month at a faster rate than in June, when the first wave hit the county and claimed more than 700 people at one point in July.
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As of Friday, 506 residents were hospitalized with the virus, including 139 in intensive care units, according to the County Health Care Agency.
This is an increase of 176% since the beginning of the month, when there were 183 people hospitalized.
At the beginning of June, 292 people were hospitalized. By the end of the month, 542 people had been hospitalized – an increase of almost 86%.
California counties above and below are struggling with increasing hospitalizations, along with many other states.
“I think the number of deaths will definitely increase,” Secretary of the State Health and Human Services Agency Dr Mark Ghaly said at a press conference on Tuesday.
He said the second wave is already straining hospitals.
“We are passing our highest caseload and starting to see our hospital systems squeezed by COVID beyond what they have ever been before,” Ghaly said.
OC also saw 1,943 new cases today. That number reflects cases from Thursday and Friday because the Health Care Agency did not release numbers for Thanksgiving.
Ghaly has repeatedly said that about 13% of new cases will end up in hospitals two to three weeks later.
Local community leaders and public health experts also fear a spike in holiday cases.
“I hope it will be a much brighter spring. But we are heading for horrible days in the next few months, ”said Ellen Ahn, executive director of Korean Community Services, a nonprofit based in Buena Park.
The county health care agency has partnered with many community groups like Korean Community Services and Latino Health Access, a Santa Ana-based nonprofit, to provide testing, isolation resources, a education and other essential services for residents of the working class, often minority, communities. .
Public health officials and experts have urged Californians to rethink vacations and encourage people not to throw big dinners and parties with people they don’t normally live with in an effort to reduce transmission of the virus .
“I think people are more aware of the need to take action. If they get together – we insist in the post not to get together – but if you get together, just do it with people who are like your closest family members, the people you normally live with ” , said America Bracho, executive director of Latino Health Access.
In a telephone interview last week, UC Irvine epidemiologist Sanghyuk Shin said the risk of contracting the virus increased exponentially as each day passed.
“For every group gathering, there’s probably one person in that group that’s contagious, it’s a lot higher than last week and by the time Thanksgiving comes around it’s going to be a lot higher,” Shin said.
Like Ghaly, Shin also warned that spikes in cases portended hospitalizations and ultimately death.
“The growing numbers are very disturbing. One thing to remember is that the number of cases is in a way the precursor of the number of hospitalizations, which is then a precursor of the number of cases of serious illness and intensive care and which is then a precursor of death, ”he added. Shin said.
Since the pandemic began in March, the virus has killed 1,577 county residents out of 75,095 confirmed cases, including 18 new deaths reported on Friday, according to the county. Health care agency.
The virus has already killed nearly three times as many people in Orange County as the flu on average each year.
For context, Orange County has recorded an average of around 20,000 deaths per year since 2016, including 543 annual flu deaths, according to health data status.
According to these same statistics, cancer kills more than 4,600 people, heart disease kills more than 2,800, more than 1,400 die of Alzheimer’s disease and strokes kill more than 1,300 people.
The county is on track to surpass its annual death average with more than 19,000 deaths in October, according to state of health data.
UC Irvine epidemiologist Daniel Parker said daily new cases of OC could overwhelm the contact tracing system.
Parker said if contact tracers have to speak with at least five different people for each new case, then a high number of daily cases will hamper the search effort.
“These types of efforts work best when the cases are low. But when they shoot through the roof, you can’t contact trace, ”Parker said in a phone interview last week.
Orange County has recorded an average of more than 900 new cases per day over the past week.
Public health officials are struggling to determine where exactly epidemics are occurring.
“I cannot pinpoint the exact source of the transmission,” Ghaly said in response to Voice of OC’s question on Monday.
He said counties had consistently pointed out that private gatherings like dinners and house parties were a source of epidemics.
“We keep hearing from different countries, different things. They all mention that private gatherings are an important source of transmission but not the only one. And sometimes not even identified as the highest source of transmission, ”Ghaly said.
He warned that dinners and parties are likely to cause new cases, as asymptomatic people – infected people who do not have symptoms – can easily pass it on to others.
“In general, what we know is that every time you get together with people in your care, your mask comes off, you are closer to a few feet from each other, there is a risk of transmission.
Here are the latest figures on viruses in Orange County from county data:
Infections | Hospitalizations and Deaths | City by city data | Demography
Spencer Custodio is a Voice of OC reporter. You can reach him at [email protected] Follow him on twitter @SpencerCustodio
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