About 6,000 doses of Pfizer vaccine were potentially damaged at the Soka Super POD University vaccination site in Aliso Viejo on Wednesday due to a malfunction of the refrigerator.
“It’s in that range,” Orange County CEO Frank Kim said of the number of potentially damaged doses. “We don’t have an exact number yet.” Vaccines can still be used, Kim said.
The Pfizer vaccine should be put in a special freezer and then transferred to a refrigerator to begin thawing. The next step is to mix it and let it thaw completely at room temperature before starting inoculations. The vaccine should be used within six hours of thawing at room temperature.
“We are in talks with the manufacturer to see what can be done with the vaccine,” Kim said. Kim stressed that none of the vaccines were used and that other doses were introduced, so appointments made by Wednesday would not be affected.
Appointments at Dodger Stadium go unused, as people get confused about first-dose appointments. Hetty Chang reported to NBC4 News on Tuesday, February 9, 2021.
Pharmacists who arrived at work at 4:30 a.m. Wednesday to begin the vaccine preparation process noticed the refrigerator was not working properly, Kim said. Aside from disappointment with potentially pampered doses, the county received good news Wednesday about a continuing downward trend in coronavirus and hospitalizations.
The Orange County Health Agency reported 454 new cases of COVID-19, raising the cumulative total to 240,220. “Everything is going in the right direction,” Kim said of the case and hospitalization rates. “But I’ll wait a week to see if there are any problems with the Super Bowl … We’ll see how it looks next week.”
Officials are worried about an increase in cases due to Super Bowl meetings last Sunday. The county also recorded 35 more fatalities, bringing the death toll to 3,451. Death reports are staggered because they come from a variety of sources and are not always recorded immediately.
January was the deadliest month of COVID-19 in Orange County with 893 fatalities. In December, the death toll is 853. That means about half of the county’s fatalities since its first death occurred on March 19 in December and January.
The reopening plan for the schools will be announced later this week, but some parents are still in no hurry to return their children to class. Kim Baldonado reported to NBC4 News on Tuesday, February 9, 2021.
Of the deaths recorded Wednesday, seven were qualified residents in nursing centers, bringing the total to 879 since the pandemic began. Three were residents in assisted living facilities, bringing this total to 380.
The adjusted daily case rate per 100,000 people dropped from 39 last Tuesday to 29.7 this week and the test positivity rate on an average of seven days, with a seven-day delay, fell from 10, 9% last week to 9.4%.
The county health equity quartile positivity rate, which measures cases in most affected and needy areas of the county, fell from 13.9% last week to 12.4%. State-coded level frame number numbers are updated on Tuesdays.
To move to the less restrictive red level of the top purple level of the state’s coronavirus regulatory system, the county needs to improve from 4 to 7 new cases daily per 100,000 and a positivity rate of 5% to 8% with a quartile of equity in health to From 5.3% to 8%.
The number of coronavirus patients at county hospitals decreased from 1,058 on Tuesday to 1,009 on Wednesday and the number of intensive care patients decreased from 324 to 310, according to the OCHCA.
The availability of UCI beds adjusted to the state of the county remains at zero and the unadjusted figure increased from Tuesday to 10.2% to Wednesday to 12.1%. The state created the adjusted metric to reflect the difference in beds available for COVID-19 patients and patients without coronavirus.
The OCHCA also reported 19,850 tests on Wednesday, bringing the total to 2,817,697.