The Riverside University Health System said COVID hospitalizations countywide were at 1,109 Wednesday, up 31 from Tuesday’s numbers. That includes 160 ICU patients, up two from Tuesday.
Some of those patients likely entered the hospital for other reasons and only discovered they had the virus after a hospital-mandated test.
The county agency also reported six more COVID-related deaths since Tuesday, bringing its cumulative pandemic total to 5,687.
The fatalities are trailing indicators because of delays processing death certificates and can go back weeks, according to health officials.
Officials said the aggregate number of COVID cases recorded in the county since the pandemic began in March 2020 now stands at 430,494.
The number of known active virus cases in the county is 23,977. The active count is derived by subtracting deaths and recoveries from the current total — 430,494. Verified patient recoveries countywide are 400,830.
The aggregate number of COVID-related hospitalizations countywide is roughly 40% below the peak count reached a year ago last week, during the previous virus spike, when about 1,700 virus cases were recorded among hospitalized patients, according to the RUHS.