The number of people hospitalized with a coronavirus infection in Orange County has decreased by three people to 109, according to the latest state numbers.
Of those patients hospitalized as of Friday, 19 were being treated in intensive care, down one from the previous day’s total.
Some of the patients entered the hospital for other reasons and discovered they had the coronavirus after a required test.
Meanwhile, Orange County’s children’s hospital remains full with influenza and RSV patients, with some older kids being sent to other area hospitals for care, but the county’s COVID-19 metrics remained about the same as last week.
Orange County declared a state of emergency regarding the wave of RSV cases in the children’s hospitals last week. As of Wednesday, there were 44 patients at CHOC in Orange and 16 in Mission Viejo, CHOC officials said.
The county has 24.8% of its intensive care unit beds available. Officials grow concerned when that percentage drops below 20%.
On Thursday, the Orange County Health Care Agency reported 1,172 new cases of COVID-19 for the week, increasing the cumulative case count to 675,634 since the pandemic began. The OCHCA also reported 14 more fatalities linked to COVID-19, boosting the cumulative death toll to 7,555.
The county’s test positivity rate remained at 5%, the same as last week, with the statistic going from 4.4% to 4% in the health equity quartile, which measures the communities hardest hit by the pandemic. The daily case rate per 100,000 remained at 4.8 on a seven-day average with a seven-day lag, the same as last week, and remained at 4.9 in the adjusted daily case rate per 100,000 on a seven-day average with a seven-day lag.
Of those hospitalized, 68% are incompletely vaccinated or unvaccinated and 68.5% of the COVID-19 patients in intensive care units are incompletely vaccinated or unvaccinated.
The positivity rate for those fully vaccinated with a booster went from 5.7 on Oct. 30 to 6.8 on Nov. 6, according to the latest data available. For those vaccinated with no booster, the rate went from 3.2 to 3.1. For those not vaccinated the rate went from 5.5 to 5.1.