Coronavirus Cases And Hospitalizations Climb In Orange County

SANTA ANA, CA — New coronavirus cases and hospitalizations continued to climb slightly in Orange County Monday. Coming almost two weeks after widespread reopenings, the uptick was expected.

The news comes on the same day a trio of studies were released affirming the efficacy of the COVID-19 vaccines in protecting against future surges. One report concluded that people who received the Moderna and Pfizer RNA vaccines may have immunity for years to come provided the virus does not mutate significantly. The findings point to the vaccines as America's way out of the pandemic.

“Remember all that stuff at the beginning where people were panicking over antibodies vanishing?” Deepta Bhattacharya, an immunologist at the University of Arizona said to the New York Times. In light of Monday's findings “it’s hard for me to see how and why we would need boosters of the same thing every six to nine months,” he added.

In Orange County, more than 1,734,537 residents are fully vaccinated, according to the Orange County Health Care Agency.

Orange County Monday reported 170 new COVID-19 infections, which reflects new cases since Friday, as hospitalizations remained stable. The new infections pushed the cumulative case count to 256,222. Hospitalizations inched up from 49 on Friday to 51 on Monday, while the number of intensive care unit patients increased from nine to 11.

Andrew Noymer, a UC Irvine professor of population health and disease prevention, said Friday that, "The numbers are still looking good for Orange County."

There has been some concern about the more contagious Delta variant spurring an increase in COVID-19 cases globally, but Noymer emphasized that "the Delta variant is covered by the current vaccines."

He added, "What worries me about the Delta variant is not the Delta variant per se... it's some future variant... Anyone concerned about Delta should get vaccinated right away."

As the coronavirus spreads to unvaccinated people it could continue to mutate and develop strains that could more easily evade vaccines, Noymer said.

The county no longer posts COVID-19 data on the weekends. Starting Thursday, the county will begin posting data weekly.

The Orange County Health Care Agency also logged four more fatalities, but three occurred in January, including a skilled nursing facility resident, hiking up the cumulative in that category to 1,137. One of the fatalities occurred this month.

The overall death toll is 5,118 for the county.

The death toll now stands at six for June; 22 for May; 42 for April; 198 for March; 608 for February; 1,559 for January, the deadliest month of the pandemic; and 966 for December, the next deadliest.

According to weekly state data released every Tuesday, the county's average daily new case rate per 100,000 residents ticked up from 0.8 last week to 0.9, while the overall test positivity rate ticked up from 0.6% to 0.7%.

The county's Health Equity Quartile rate, which measures positivity in hot spots in disadvantaged communities, dipped down from 0.8% to 0.7%. That would have kept the county safely in the least-restrictive yellow tier, but that system ended with the state's reopening on June 15.

The county reported 15,338 tests, increasing the cumulative tally to 4,105,137.

The county's weekly average of tests per 100,000 residents ticked up from 195.4 last week to 198.6.

City News Service and Patch Staffer Paige Austin contributed to this report.