Orange County to move into red tier Sunday

Orange County is set to advance to the red tier on Sunday in the state’s Blueprint for a Safer Economy, which guides reopening with respect to the coronavirus, county officials announced in a news release on Friday.

The California Department of Public Health said that the state has administered 2 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine to communities hit hardest by the pandemic.

With the equity measure met, Orange County is one of 13 counties that will be moving to a less restrictive tier. The changes, set to go into effect Sunday, will result in 21 counties being in the most-restrictive purple tier, 33 in the red tier, three in the orange tier, and one in the yellow tier.

Laguna Beach Unified School District plans to have its secondary school students return to campus for in-person learning beginning Wednesday.

“We continue to be strongly encouraged by the progress Orange County has made to lower key COVID-19 risk metrics,” District Supt. Dr. Jason Viloria wrote in a message addressed to the LBUSD community on Thursday. “Based on the projected county COVID-19 risk level next week, we continue to be on track for secondary schools to open to in-person hybrid instruction on Wednesday, March 17.”

When the tier metrics were updated on Tuesday, Orange County had an adjusted daily case rate of six cases per 100,000 residents, which met the standard for the red tier. The county’s testing positivity rate of 3.2% and health equity quartile positivity rate of 4.1% meet the criteria for the orange tier.

Orange County reported 26 coronavirus deaths and 172 new infections on Saturday in the latest data released by the Orange County Health Care Agency.

There have been 4,434 deaths in the county attributed to the virus during the pandemic, and the cumulative case count is now 248,561.

Hospitalizations because of the virus are currently at 237, with 71 of those patients being treated in intensive care units.

The county reported 10,221 additional tests for the virus on Saturday, taking the total number of tests administered to 3,171,822.

The healthcare agency estimates that 238,961 people in the county have made a recovery after battling the virus.

Here are the latest cumulative coronavirus case counts and COVID-19 deaths for select cities in Orange County:

• Santa Ana: 44,295 cases; 781 deaths
• Anaheim: 41,168 cases; 782 deaths
• Huntington Beach: 10,368 cases; 197 deaths
• Costa Mesa: 8,748 cases; 119 deaths
• Irvine: 10,243 cases; 78 deaths
• Newport Beach: 3,659 cases; 70 deaths
• Fountain Valley: 3,418 cases; 73 deaths
• Laguna Beach: 806 cases; five deaths

Here are the case counts by age group, followed by deaths:

• 0 to 17: 25,800 cases; one death
• 18 to 24: 34,333 cases; nine deaths
• 25 to 34: 49,472 cases; 43 deaths
• 35 to 44: 38,690 cases; 95 deaths
• 45 to 54: 39,893 cases; 280 deaths
• 55 to 64: 31,349 cases; 615 deaths
• 65 to 74: 15,619 cases; 857 deaths
• 75 to 84: 7,906 cases; 1,092 deaths
• 85 and older: 5,332 cases; 1,442 deaths

Updated figures are posted daily at occovid19.ochealthinfo.com/coronavirus-in-oc. Information on COVID-19 vaccines in Orange County can be found at occovid19.ochealthinfo.com/covid-19-vaccine-resources.

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