Orange County Jails, Nursing Homes Continue To Surge In COVID-19 Cases
SANTA ANA (CBSLA) - An outbreak of COVID-19 in Orange County jails continues to widen, with 968 infections as of Wednesday, up from 908 on Tuesday. The county is awaiting the results of 675 tests.
On Friday, the first jailed inmate in Orange County with COVID-19 died of complications from the virus.
Earlier this month, a judge ordered the Orange County jail population to be cut in half so that inmates could properly social distance and abide by coronavirus safety protocols.
Orange County Superior Court Judge Peter Wilson ruled 1,858 inmates must be released from the Orange County jail to reduce the population by 50 percent. The jail currently houses 3,716 inmates.
"The public should be in a panic and they should be concerned about this release," said Sheriff Don Barnes of the Orange County Sheriff's Department at the time of the ruling, adding he would not be complying with the judge's order to make a list of inmates to release.
Outbreaks in the county's nursing homes continue to rise, with 45 skilled nursing facilities and 47 elderly assisted living facilities reporting two or more positive cases within the last two weeks.
The county recorded 21,535 tests on Wednesday, for a total of 1,906,582. The county is testing 606.1 per 100,000 population on a seven-day average with a seven-day lag, up from 526.8 last week.
Orange County's adjusted daily case rate per 100,000 rose Tuesday to 51.8, up from 42.7 last week. The positivity rate increased from 13.2 percent to 15.2 percent.
The county's Health Equity Quartile Positivity Rate, which measures the cases in highly affected, needier parts of the county, rose from 18.8 percent last week to 22.7 percent.
(© Copyright 2020 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. City News Service contributed to this report.)