The county reported 23 fatalities Wednesday, the same day county front-line workers received vaccines against COVID-19. The most recent deaths, which date back to earlier this month, raised the death toll to 1,718.
The region also recorded 3,231 new diagnoses of COVID-19 on Wednesday, bringing the total number of accumulated cases to 111,168.
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Hospitalizations rose from 1,371 on Tuesday to 1,486 on Wednesday, including 319 intensive care patients, up from 296 the day before.
Both are new records, a daily fact since last week.
Bed availability in the county ICU fell from 10.4% on Tuesday to 9.5% in the unadjusted category and from 1.4% in the zero-adjusted metric. The state created the adjusted metric to reflect the difference in beds available for COVID-19 patients and patients without coronavirus.
The percentage of beds available in ICUs in the Southern California region, eleven counties, fell from 1.7% to 0.5%.
On Wednesday afternoon, the Orange County Health Care Agency issued an order to suspend the capacity of hospitals participating in the 911 system to request an ambulance diversion to other medical centers.
Dr. Carl Schultz, the agency’s EMS medical director, said in a statement that hospital emergencies have become so overwhelmed by the increase in COVID that “almost all hospitals have been diverted.”
“If nothing is done, ambulances would soon run out of hospitals that could accommodate their patients,” Schultz said. Therefore, we temporarily suspended the diversion of ambulances. While this will put additional stress on hospitals, this will spread across the county. and help mitigate the growing concern about finding hospital destinations for ambulances. “
Schultz added, “As far as we know, this has never happened before.”
On Monday, Schultz issued a note authorizing ambulance providers to take patients up to 29 years old to Orange Children’s Hospital, but another note released Tuesday by Schultz dismissed it.
“As a result of this directive there have been multiple logistical complications and it would be in everyone’s interest to leave this activity, effective immediately,” Schultz said.
Orange County’s adjusted daily case rate per 100,000 rose Tuesday from 30.3 the week before to 42.7, with a positivity rate rising from 10.6% to 13.2%. The positivity rate for the county health equity quartile, which measures cases in most affected and needy areas of the county, rose from 16.2% last week to 18.8%.
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The county is testing 526.8 people per 100,000 on an average of seven days with a seven-day delay, which is the all-time high.
All county metrics are now within the state’s most restrictive purple level of the state’s four-level coronavirus control system.
Since Sunday, 38 deaths have been reported in Orange County. Last week, the county reported 62 fatalities, up from 41 and 26, respectively, in the previous two weeks.
Most of the fatalities reported since Friday belonged to the category of 75 years and older, but at least one was between 25 and 34 years old.
Earlier this month, the record of ICU patients in Orange County was 245 during the mid-July rise. General hospitalizations have broken records daily since Dec. 2.
The county received its first Pfizer coronavirus vaccine shipment Wednesday. About 25,000 doses were delivered.
Dr. Paul Sheikewitz of Providence St. Joseph d’Orange, who was one of the first to receive a vaccine on Wednesday, told City News Service that “it has been very difficult” to attend to the increase in patients.
“The biggest challenge is the burden on the number of patients we see compared to the number of staff able to care for them,” Sheikewitz said. . “
Dr. Jeremy Zoch, general manager of the hospital, urged residents to stay home as long as possible, especially during the holidays.
“When (hospital caregivers) usually celebrate the holidays, they take extra shifts and work on unexpected roles,” Zoch said. “Stay home. Stay safe and help us reduce the spread so we can stay up to date and take care of the community here.”
Dr. Clayton Chau, director of the County Health Agency and head of health, said, “We all need to ask the community not to lower their guard now, not when we are so close to reaching the other. pandemic side Right now we need to get together like never before. “
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Zoch said the latest wave of patients has been pretty amazing. “
“Last summer, when we had our climb in July, we had the National Guard here to help us … But frankly, this climb we have 75% more patients than the last climb,” Zoch said. . “He challenged. Us. ”
Zoch said his hospital’s ICU beds “are really almost full. We’re lucky to have CHOC Children by our side and we’ve talked to them about giving us space to use them if necessary.”
Dr. Stephanie Chao, director of pharmaceutical services at Hoag Memorial Hospital in Newport Beach, said she experienced a “great sense of relief at seeing this large truck rise” to deliver the first doses of Pfizer vaccine Wednesday at morning.
“I know our department has been working hard … and taking it day in and day out, supporting each other,” Chao said. “We believe Hoag has done a lot of work to prepare to withstand different waves.
“We have plans that we can activate and we are already activating, so as an organization we work hard, doing everything we can … Some days we run on adrenaline and hopefully there will be some light at the end of the tunnel. As health workers, we move on because that’s all we can do, but sometimes we need a minute to get together and reflect. “
County health officials are particularly struggling to house elderly people with dementia, who are infected and show no symptoms, Chao said.
“We can’t send them to a hospital … They don’t need that level of care,” Chao told the Board of Supervisors meeting on Tuesday. And we can’t send them to a nursing home … I can’t send them to a hotel. “
These patients will likely be housed at the Costa Mesa Fairview Developmental Center, which is expected to open Thursday. “But we only have 50 beds available,” Chau said. “We will run out of options to take care of these people.”
“I lose sleep every night,” he said. “I’m scared. … I’ve never been so scared of Christmas and New Year in my whole life … I can’t imagine what it would be like after the holidays if people don’t listen and don’t comply.”
Governor Gavin Newsom’s latest restrictions are scheduled for at least Dec. 27, but with the increase in cases and patients, “I don’t think we can get out of it,” Chau said.
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Supervisor Doug Chaffee said Monday night he received a text message from a medical professional at St. Louis Medical Center. Jude de Fullerton who indicated that the hospital had “99% capacity.”
The 301 hospital beds are filled with 138 COVID-19 patients, Chaffee said.
“The ICU has 105% capacity,” he said. “They’re using every bed available. The emergency department has an overflow … All the hospitals in Orange County are in the same situation.
“It’s terrible, so they’ll be setting up a tent in the parking lot soon, probably for triage. I think what we’re seeing is not a surge, but a tsunami.”
To meet the need, mobile tents are set up to be housed in large trailers and include canvas tents with hard floors and temperature-controlled units that have running water, toilets, showers and generators, as well as air purifiers.
Fountain Valley Regional Hospital will get 50 more beds, the St. Jude’s 25 and UC Irvine Medical Center in Orange, with 50 beds.
An outbreak in county prisons, which began last week, now has 627 infected inmates, up from 416 reported Monday. The county expects results from 86 more tests.
According to department spokeswoman Carrie Braun, Sheriff Don Barnes, who had previously kept the tests restricted to newly booked inmates, anyone who shows symptoms or is exposed to an infected person, will try to test everyone in prison. .
Inmates who test positive are restricted to a single cell in an isolated state and anyone else exposed is quarantined together while awaiting test results, he said.
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Meanwhile, Barnes has been ordered by a judge in the Orange County Superior Court to halve the prison population by Friday, meaning 1,800 inmates could be released, tracked on bracelets or just set them free.
The Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to hire outside lawyers to help Barnes in the legal fight with the American Civil Liberties Union, which demanded to reduce the prison population.
The board also voted to sue the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation for challenging departments to remove convicted offenders from county prisons during the pandemic.
The county is also dealing with an increase in outbreaks in specialized nurses and assisted living facilities. As of Tuesday, 32 qualified nursing centers have had two or more confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 36 assisted living centers have had two or more cases.
County officials have been asked to provide personal protective equipment, additional training or personnel to help curb the spread of COVID-19 at these facilities, where the main reason for the spread is likely to be employees who contract the virus. out of place, Kim said.
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