Evan J. LancasterAfter a quick halt in reporting daily COVID-19 statistics, the Orange County Health Agency has restarted publishing daily COVID-19 updates on the county’s COVID-19 dashboard, as cases and hospitalizations continue to increase across the nation.
In HCA’s shift back to daily COVID-19 reports, HCA simply announced via Twitter that daily updates were available, “Monday – Friday by 5 p.m.” via the county’s COVID-19 Dashboard. However, HCA did not indicate what prompted the change in reporting.
#OC, we have posted the #OCCOVID19 cases reported to us today to our website at https://t.co/4UVSqinANG, where additional data are available. Updates are posted Monday – Friday by 5 p.m. pic.twitter.com/MlDYcDXhzS
— OC Health Care Agency (@ochealth) July 19, 2021
On Wednesday, July 21, HCA reported 290 new COVID-19 cases. While no COVID-19 related deaths were reported on Wednesday, Orange County did report nine new deaths the week of July 14, during the period HCA shifted to weekly COVID-19 reports.
It is also worth noting the Orange County has not recorded a daily COVID-19 report with cases below 100 since July 4. Similarly, COVID-19 hospitalizations have continued to increase and have not dipped below 100 since July 8 – the highest levels since the end of March.
As of July 21, the HCA COVID-19 Dashboard indicated 143 people were hospitalized in Orange County. Since July 6, Orange County’s intensive care unit capacity has more than doubled, jumping from 11, on July 6 – to 35, as of July 20.
While Los Angeles has opted to reinstate an indoor mask mandate for both the unvaccinated and vaccinated against COVID-19, Orange County asked residents to use precaution against the virus, but does not have plans to reinstate any mask mandates, despite the high transmission rate of the COVID-19 Delta Variant.
As of July 20, the California Department of Public Health reported 5,285 new COVID-19 cases statewide, with 11 new COVID-19 related deaths. With the state’s most recent report, California’s test positivity rate also increased from 4.1% on July 18, to 4.5% just a few days later.
Accumulatively, CDPH has reported 3,772,470 cases since the pandemic began.
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