SANTA ANA (CNS)—Orange County Jan. 15 reported 82 more COVID-19 fatalities, a record for a daily batch, and 3,158 new cases as hospitalizations continued a trend downward.
Since Jan. 10, the county has reported 236 deaths. Last week, the county logged 140 deaths.
The death reports are staggered and sometimes take weeks to be logged, but December was the deadliest month for the county since the pandemic began, with 538 fatalities recorded so far. That tops the summer peak, when 379 died in July and 367 in August, according to Orange County Health Care Agency statistics.
Of the fatalities reported Jan. 15—bringing the death toll to 2,277—12 were skilled nursing facility residents and five lived in assisted living facilities. Since the start of the pandemic, the virus has killed 721 skilled nursing facility residents and 248 assisted living facility residents.
The number of patients hospitalized with coronavirus dropped from 2,169 on Jan. 14 to 2,101 on Jan. 15. The number of intensive care unit patients declined from 544, just short of Jan. 10’s record of 547, to 534.
The county’s state-adjusted ICU bed availability remains at zero, and the unadjusted figure decreased from 7.4 percent Jan. 14 to 7.2 percent Friday. 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 remains at zero ICU availability.
According to the HCA, the county has 36 percent of its ventilators available. Sheriff’s officials reported a decline in the number of Orange County Jail inmates infected with coronavirus from 254 Jan. 14 to 181 Jan. 15.
Authorities are awaiting results from 428 tests, and three inmates are hospitalized, down from five on Jan. 12.
Outbreaks—defined as two more cases in the past two weeks—have been plaguing skilled nursing and elderly assisted living facilities. As of Jan. 15, 38 skilled nursing facilities and 49 assisted living facilities are dealing with outbreaks.
The average time to drop off patients from ambulances stands at 49 minutes and 59 seconds 90 percent of the time.
Fairview Developmental Center is housing a 13 Orange County coronavirus patients and a dozen from Los Angeles County.
