Candlelight Memorial For Coronavirus Victims Planned For Friday

ORANGE COUNTY, CA —Orange County Supervisor Katrina Foley has planned a candlelight memorial to honor the over 5,000 people who lost their lives due to coronavirus.

On Friday, June 1 1 at 7:30 p.m. in Costa Mesa, all are invited to bring a photo of your loved one or a flower for the memorial at 3350 Avenue of the Arts at the lake behind the Avenue of the Arts Hotel.

The two additional fatalities increased the coronavirus death toll in Orange County to 5,090.

One of the fatalities reported Wednesday was in January, the deadliest month since the start of the pandemic, and the other was in December, the next deadliest.

Thus far, one person has died in June, as of this report. There were 14 people who died in May, 41 more died in April. The larger death tolls of coronavirus included 185 for March, 588 in February. January had the largest number of coronavirus related fatalities, with 1,553, followed by 960 in December.

The county's COVID-19 statistics have been "ticking up or down one-tenth of a point day-to-day so there are no significant changes," Orange County CEO Frank Kim told City News Service on Monday.

"It seems like we've hit a new plateau, which is good because it's a low plateau," he said.

When considering all residents eligible for inoculation, "we're in the 65% range" of those who have received at least one dose of vaccine, Kim said.

The county is now focusing on mobile vaccination sites, Kim said.

"We had 22 mobile PODs last week," he said.
At one shopping center in Irvine, the county had 200 appointments booked, and 160 showed up, Kim said.

Another 80, however, arrived without an appointment and were inoculated, "so we did about 240 that day," he said.

Another 8,711 COVID-19 tests were reported Wednesday, bringing the county's total to 3,987,087.

The county's weekly average of tests per 100,000 dropped from 233.1 last week to 210.1.

According to weekly state data released every Tuesday, the average for the county's daily case rate per 100,000 residents dropped from 0.9 to 0.8. The overall test positivity rate ticked up from 0.6% to 0.7%, and the county's Health Equity Quartile rate, which measures positivity in hot spots in disadvantaged communities, inched up from 0.7% to 0.8%.

Those numbers guaranteed the county will remain in the least- restrictive yellow tier. Regardless, the state is getting ready to scrap its tier system for reopening the economy on June 15.

Orange County officially entered the least-restrictive yellow tier of the reopening blueprint on May 19, which allowed for greater attendance for many businesses such as movie theaters and gyms, while museums, zoos and aquariums were allowed to open at full capacity.

For the first time, bars and distilleries were able to open indoors, and theme parks such as Disneyland could expand attendance.