The spread of the coronavirus in Orange County has grown so fast in recent weeks that the county may soon be on the state’s watch list for possible renewed blockade orders.
At the local level, two key metrics used by state and local health officials to measure the spread of the disease: the rates of new COVID-19 cases per 100,000 residents and the percentage of people who test positive for the virus, already they are in sight or beyond the threshold-list state.
Orange County put a toe on a line on Friday, June 26, when the positive test rate reached 8.5% locally, just above the 8% limit set by the state.
Also on Friday, the county reported that COVID-related hospitalizations grew 17.6% in the past three days, well above the state threshold of 10%.
It is unclear whether the new data will cause the state to include Orange County on its watch list, which already includes Los Angeles, San Bernardino and Riverside counties, among others. State officials search at least three days of data to establish a trend before deciding to add counties to the watch list.
If Orange County ends up on the list, and if recent trends aren’t reversed, a renewed blockade could be on the table.
On Friday, Governor Gavin Newsom called on Imperial County, where coronavirus cases and hospitalizations have increased, to reinstate stay-at-home orders that would limit operations in nonessential businesses and re-close many other areas of the city. public life.
If such action is taken in Orange County, it could come in stages.
Corey Egel, acting deputy director of public affairs at the state health department, said state officials will first work with local health departments and county leaders for a “specific engagement”, setting out details on why a county is seeing levels Higher disease transmission, hospitalization, or limited hospital capacity.
But without voluntary action at the county level, the state can intervene.
“If the county does not progress or does not progress, and the local jurisdiction refuses to act, the State Public Health Officer can take action,” said Egel.
As of Friday, 15 of the state’s 58 counties were on the watch list. Egel said those counties could consider reviving the boundaries of nonessential business or issuing more general stay-at-home orders.
But before taking such steps, state officials will discuss other steps with local health departments, such as more aggressive testing, tracking additional contacts, and new strategies for managing healthcare resources and infection control.
Los Angeles County, for example, is seeing a high rate of coronavirus cases because of its high testing capacity and because it is evaluating all residents and staff at more than 200 skilled nursing facilities.
The latest data suggests that Orange County is starting to break state thresholds on another key metric: the number of new cases per 100,000 people reported over a three-week period.
In Orange County, that number has grown steadily since the start of the pandemic.
As of April 1, the rate was 17 new cases per 100,000 residents, according to county records. In early May, it was 31 and a month later it was 61.
On Friday, the county reported that the new number was 98, just below the 100 state watch list threshold.
In comparison, Los Angeles County had a new case rate of 199 per 100,000. And in Imperial County, which was placed under stricter orders on Friday, the rate was 680 new cases per 100,000 people. Both counties have been on the watch list since June 5.
On Friday, Newsom said the state stopped issuing guidelines to help counties ease restrictions on businesses and public facilities.
The data from the Orange County Health Care Agency that the Southern California News Group analyzed differ slightly from the data that the state health department is using to track counties.
New cases are counted by the state by “episode date,” the earliest date a person could have become infected.
The Orange County health agency, on the other hand, provides the number of new cases registered by the agency on a given day, regardless of when a person was tested, resulting in different rates.
For measures like case rates over two weeks, state health department analyzes ignore data that is less than three days old due to widespread delays in reporting test results.
Dr. Clayton Chau, acting county health officer for Orange County, said the Health Care Agency is regularly speaking with the state health department and monitoring the data daily to report response plans.
“If the monitoring metrics result in the State marking the CO, the HCA will work closely with the State to determine any additional mitigation strategies that may be necessary,” Chau said.
