Orange County coronavirus metrics are gaining ground; arrival of late vaccines – Orange County Register

A month and a half after three crucial COVID-19 tracking measures broke previous records during the worst increase to date, Orange County’s situation has improved to a point where it may soon qualify for the less restrictive red level of pandemic rules .

And as thousands are being vaccinated every day with more products in store, increased immunity should keep metrics down – particularly the share of positive coronavirus tests, said Dr. Clayton Chau, director of the OC Health Care Agency and an official county health care.

Orange County’s health equity metric – or test positivity among neighborhoods where residents are most vulnerable to the effects of the pandemic – dropped to 7% this week, meeting the 8% red level requirement for the first time since the fall, according to a State Department of State Update on health metrics on Tuesday, February 23.

Last week, the county’s health equity reached 10.6%.

The positivity of the test across the county, the first metric to cross the red level territory last week, improved further to 5.4% from 7.8% last week, meaning that for every 100 people tested with swab or spit in Orange County, about five are coronavirus-positive.

The laggard that keeps Orange County in the most restrictive purple layer is its case rate, which has also dropped this week to 11.9 cases per day for 100,000 residents from 20.7 last week, but has remained above the limit rate of the red layer of 7.

But Chau told the county council of supervisors on Tuesday that the case rate “has dropped dramatically in the last month or so”.

Moving to the red level would relax some restrictions in Orange County – a handful of types of businesses and public places like restaurants, cinemas and gyms could once again welcome customers indoors, but with limited capacity and other rules in place to contain the spread of the coronavirus.

All three metrics must be within the ranges of the red level for two weeks before the change is official. Most of California’s 58 counties remained in the most restrictive purple layer this week; only 11 counties were at lower levels.

Late vaccines arrived

Chau told county supervisors during a meeting on Tuesday that a delayed shipment from the vaccine team should have received last week to keep the mass vaccination sites up and running. It finally arrived that morning, and that this week’s distribution is expected on Thursday.

Chau said that means that the Disneyland Super POD (distribution point), which had been closed since Thursday due to reduced supply, could reopen on Wednesday. He did not say whether two other county-run shooting centers at Soka University and Santa Ana College would also immediately resume their regular appointments.

But despite the supply line disruption caused in part by icy weather in the east, county officials had enough vaccines to launch their latest large-scale website at the Anaheim Convention Center on Tuesday, where medical staff attended patients who needed a second dose.

Despite a slow start, complicated by a shortage of vaccines and technical problems with state and municipal systems, Chau said the county is making great progress in vaccinating vulnerable groups such as non-white elderly people.

The overall share of vaccinated seniors in Orange County is encouraging, Chau said, and as seniors tend to have more severe cases of COVID-19 than younger, healthier people, the burden on local hospitals is expected to ease in the future.

“We believe that we have already passed half of the elderly over 65 years old who received at least one dose of the vaccine – this is something to celebrate,” said Chau.

The new Blue Shield function

County officials are frustrated by the lack of details on how Blue Shield will take over as the state’s vaccine administrator, but more information may come later this week.

On Tuesday, Chau told county supervisors that he will meet with Blue Shield officials on Thursday. After the new administrator takes over (probably next week), the county will receive regular vaccine allocations like other health providers, like Kaiser Permanente and UCI Health, but will no longer have to supply doses to smaller doctors’ offices and clinics, he said.