For the first time in months, Orange County’s COVID-19 positivity rate improved enough Tuesday to qualify for the red tier in the state’s guidelines to reopen more businesses, although the county still doesn’t meet all the metrics required to graduate from the most restrictive purple tier.
The county on Tuesday reported 658 new coronavirus cases and logged 40 more deaths, raising the cumulative to 243,163 and the death toll to 3,617. Those numbers reflect two days since there was no update Monday for the Presidents Day holiday.
Hospitalizations continued a downward trend with 748 patients, down from 790 on Sunday, with the number in intensive care dropping from 257 to 235.
The county has 15.3% of its ICU beds available, as well as 56% of its ventilators, according to the Orange County Health Care Agency.
Of the 40 deaths reported Tuesday, two were skilled nursing facility residents and five were assisted living facility residents, raising those totals to 902 and 406 respectively.
The death reports are staggered because they come from a variety of sources and are not always logged immediately.
But January surpassed 1,000 deaths over the weekend. The death toll for January now stands at 1,040 so far, beating the previous record of December, which now has recorded 859 dead.
That means that 52% of the county’s death toll since the first fatality on March 19, 2020 occurred in December and January. The death toll for February is 26 so far.
The deadliest day of the pandemic in Orange County is Jan. 5 when 63 people died. The second highest was Jan. 3 when 61 people died.
The county’s adjusted daily case rate per 100,000 people dropped from 29.7 last week to 20.7 on Tuesday, and the test positivity rate on a seven-day average, with a seven-day lag, fell from 9.4% to 7.8%, which meets the criteria for the red tier.
The county’s Health Equity Quartile Positivity Rate, which measures the cases in highly affected, needier parts of the county, declined from 12.4% last week to 10.7%.
The numbers for the state’s color-coded tier framework are updated on Tuesdays.
To move to the less-restrictive red tier from the purple tier, the county has to improve to 4 to 7 new daily cases per 100,000 and a 5% to 8% positivity rate with a health equity quartile at 5.3% to 8%.
Orange County CEO Frank Kim said the county has “one foot in the red tier and another firmly planted in purple still.”
The county reported 13,324 COVID-19 tests Tuesday, raising the cumulative total to 2,890,591.