SANTA ANA (CNS)—Orange County supervisors have reached a deal to host a second super site for vaccines at Knott’s Berry Farm, shortly after confirming Disneyland would be used as its first super site.
Officials are also working on setting up a vaccination site at the Orange County Fairgrounds in Costa Mesa, said Supervisor Doug Chaffee.
Ultimately, the county is aiming to have five regional super sites.
“We don’t have enough vaccine to open another one,'' Chaffee said of opening a second super site. “We can’t open up too much until we have the quantity of vaccine we need.”
The news comes as the Orange County Health Care Agency (HCA) reported 28 more COVID-19 fatalities and 3,258 new cases Jan. 12, raising the death toll to 2,148 and the cumulative case count to 195,685.
Of the deaths reported Jan. 12, one was a skilled nursing facility resident and one lived in an assisted living facility.
Since the pandemic began, 700 skilled nursing facility residents and 236 assisted living facility residents have died.
Dr. Clayton Chau, the county’s chief health officer and HCA director, said officials surveyed patients in 13 hospitals and found that 54 percent of the hospitalized COVID-19 patients are 61 and older and 71 percent in intensive care units (ICU) are 61 and older. Nearly 72 percent of those in ICU on a ventilator are 61 and older, he added.
“If we don’t stop this it will continue to be so,” Chau said of the high percentages of seniors afflicted with coronavirus.
“Seventy-five percent of those who have died in Orange County are also seniors, aged 65 or over,” Chau said. “I’m sorry, but we need to do something fast in our community. This is not just about reopening our economy—that’s important—but it is about taking care of our vulnerable community. Our seniors are dying and we need to do everything we can to stop it.”
County officials have moved seniors 65 and older to the front of the line for vaccines, Chau said.
Multiple mobile sites are operating throughout the county, with officials currently working to vaccinate the elderly in skilled nursing facilities and assisted living facilities, Chaffee said.
With another shipment of vaccines on Jan.11 the county has 40,000 doses in storage, Kim said.
Sheriff’s officials reported a decline in the number of Orange County Jail inmates infected with coronavirus from 279 Jan. 11 to 274 Jan. 12. Authorities are awaiting results from 673 tests, and five inmates are hospitalized.
The county’s state-adjusted ICU bed availability remains at zero, and the unadjusted figure increased from 5.9 percent Jan. 11 to 6.4 percent. The state created the adjusted metric to reflect the difference in beds available for COVID-19 patients and non-coronavirus patients.
The Southern California region is at zero ICU availability.
The county has 34 percent of its ventilators available.
