Orange County’s COVID-19 infection rates has continued gliding downward while hospitalizations stayed about the same, according to the latest data released by the Orange County Health Care Agency.
Hospitalizations inched up from 160 on Thursday to 163 Friday, while the number of those patients in intensive care fell from 29 to 28.
The county also logged 521 new positive COVID tests and 19 additional deaths linked to the virus on Friday, raising its cumulative totals to 542,577 cases and 6,740 fatalities.
Of the fatalities logged Friday, two occurred this month, the first deaths for March. Thirteen occurred in February, raising last month’s death toll to 230. Two of the fatalities occurred in January, hiking that month’s death toll to 517.
December’s death toll stands at 108. November’s death toll increased by two to 115, October’s stands at 136, September’s at 200 and August’s at 186. January 2021 was the deadliest month of the pandemic, with a death toll of 1,600, ahead of December 2020, the next-deadliest with 986 people lost to the virus.
Since the end of January 2022, the county has logged two more pediatric fatalities, raising the death toll in that age group to five. All of the fatalities logged Friday were in age groups 55 and older.
The new case rate per 100,000 people decreased from 6.8 Thursday to 6.5 Friday, according to the OCHCA. The testing positivity rate ticked down from 3% to 2.9%, and remained at 3.5% in the health equity quartile, which measures underserved communities hardest hit by the pandemic.
The county had 29% of its ICU beds available and 65.4% of its ventilators as of Friday. Local health officials become concerned when the level of ICU beds falls below 20%.
Of those hospitalized, approximately 83% are unvaccinated and 86% of those being treated in ICU are not inoculated, according to the OCHCA.
The case rate per 100,000 people decreased from 7.2 Feb. 26 to 4.6 March 5 for those fully vaccinated with a booster shot; from 5.9 to 4.6 for those fully vaccinated with no booster; and 12.2 to 8 for those not fully vaccinated.
The number of fully vaccinated residents in Orange County rose from 2,437,965 last week to 2,441,941, according to data released Thursday. That number includes an increase from 2,281,901 to 2,285,767 of residents who have received the two-dose regimen of vaccines from Pfizer or Moderna.
The number of residents receiving the one-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine increased from 156,064 to 156,174. Booster shots increased from 1,207,236 to 1,217,204.
In the most recently eligible age group of 5 to 11 years old, the number of children vaccinated increased from 82,166 to 83,724, versus 184,856 who have not been vaccinated. It’s the least vaccinated age group in Orange County. The next-worst vaccinated eligible age group is 25 to 34, with 323,383 inoculated and 136,013 who have not received a shot.
The age group that has received the most booster shots is 55 to 64.