By 
Spencer Custodian The |
The Orange County coronavirus death count has been 140 new deaths in the last 14 days ending Sunday, the highest number since the pandemic began, meaning the county is likely to remain on a list of State oversight that seriously limits business for the foreseeable future.
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Dr. Saahir Khan, who works at UC Irvine Medical Center in Orange treating virus patients, said the deaths are a lagging benchmark for measuring virus progression.
“I think the deaths are the latest indicator of what is happening with the COVID-19 pandemic. So they really reflect the increase in cases and hospitalizations two weeks ago, ”Khan said in a telephone interview on Monday.
“I hope that deaths will begin to stabilize, if the plateau in hospital numbers is accurate,” he said.
Last week, OC Health Care Agency staff said that patients with the virus are being transferred from hospitals to long-term care facilities and skilled nursing facilities. But, the agency does not keep a detailed count of who goes where and how many people have been transferred.
Yes, hospitalized patients with positive COVID-19 are being discharged to long-term care facilities. The OC Health Care Agency (HCA) does not track individual transfers. However, when a hospitalized patient with a positive COVID-19 is transferred to a Skilled Nursing Facility (SNF), that patient will be subtracted from the hospitalized count (by the referring hospital) and added to the SNF count via the state daily report “HCA staff said in an email last Thursday.
Khan, who is an infectious disease expert, said the transfer numbers must be traced to paint a complete picture of the OC situation.
“Now I do think we should look at how many patients are transferred to long-term intensive care centers or other higher care centers that may not be counted in the numbers. But assuming the hospitalization rate is really stagnant, I would expect [those numbers] do that too, “Khan said.
The virus has now killed 566 people in Orange County, of 34,646 confirmed cases, according to the county. Health agency.
As of Monday, more than 100 deaths have been reported since July 1. The agency notes that there could be a delay of up to eight days in reporting the deaths.
June was the deadliest month, so far, with more than 200 deaths reported that month.
The dean of the ICU School of Medicine, Dr. Thomas Cesario, said deaths may not increase due to spikes in previous cases because doctors and researchers have found better treatments for hospitalized patients.
“Maybe we can narrow it down a bit as we learn better how to care for these patients,” Cesario said. “I’m a little discouraged about how this is going: the general trends. I was hoping that now we will start to see some of this start to fade away. ”
Hospitalizations remained somewhat stable at 661, including 204 people in intensive care units.
Just over 393,000 tests have been conducted across OC, which is home to approximately 3.2 million people.
A couple of months ago, county officials announced a partnership with ICU researchers and doctors to determine the prevalence of the infection in OC residents.
Khan is part of that team, which is conducting blood tests to look for antibodies to the virus to estimate what percentage of county residents have had the virus.
“When I look at how many people have probably been infected in this county, most of us are still susceptible,” said Khan.
The study is still ongoing, Khan said, preventing him from revealing details about it.
“But I will say that we clearly have no herd immunity. We are nowhere near immunity from crowds and our numbers do not appear to be out of proportion to similar studies that have been done in other parts of the country, at least in places that have not seen much greater increases than ours, “he said.
Almost all Californians are on the state’s coronavirus watch list because their respective counties, including OC, are seeing dramatic increases in cases of positive viruses and hospitalizations and deaths.
“We have certainly organized 93 percent of the population represented in those 37 counties,” Governor Gavin Newsom said at a press conference Monday in Stockton.
OC has been on the watchlist since late June, shortly after its creation. Newsom has gradually closed gyms, beauty salons, movie theaters, barbers, indoor shopping malls, churches, and a host of other businesses since the beginning of the month by banning its indoor business operations. All bars are closed indefinitely.
Newsom did not say when counties can be removed from the watchlist, but said each county will receive an individual evaluation. He did not say what metrics state health officials in the counties will evaluate or possible revisions to current ones.
“Each county has its different capacity, different needs, different experience. All of those will be evaluated individually for additional modifications, “he said.
Khan echoed what his colleague, ICU epidemiologist Andrew Noymer has repeatedly said, called for business to be revived so that experts can study the impacts.
“So what you would do is that every time you make a change, you want to give it two or three weeks to see the effect of that change. Then it would probably start opening outdoor areas, along with social estrangement, ”said Khan.
Like Noymer, Khan said indoor bars and restaurants have a high probability of virus outbreaks.
“For me, the biggest risk is indoor bars and restaurants, so I would wait until we take other steps and see the effect of those.”
Cesario also agreed with his two colleagues.
“The worst place is a small, well-closed neighborhood.”
Here’s the latest on virus numbers across Orange County from county data:
An earlier version of this story incorrectly referred to the two-week period as the highest average, rather than the highest two-week death period.
Spencer Custodio is a reporter for the Voice of OC staff. You can contact him at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @SpencerCustodio
Journalist Nick Gerda contributed to this story.
