Orange County Reports 186 New COVID-19 Cases, 24 More Fatalities
SANTA ANA (CBSLA) -- Orange County reported an additional 186 new COVID-19 cases on Saturday, bringing the county's total cases to 55,531.
Another 24 deaths were also announced, raising the death toll to 1,340.
On Friday, O.C. Health Care Agency officials said they were happy to see the daily case counts under 200, which allows the county to remain in the red tier of the state's coronavirus monitoring system. To get to the less-restrictive orange tier the county would have to begin averaging closer to 130 daily cases.
Hospitalizations also declined from 176 on Friday to 169 on Saturday. The number of patients in ICU declined from 62 to 61.
The positivity rate, which is reported each Tuesday, is around 3.2%. The daily case rate per 100,000 people rose to 5.2, which is higher than the cutoff of 3.9 to qualify for a move from the red to the orange tier.
Moving to the orange tier would allow retail businesses to operate at full capacity, including shopping malls. However, common areas would remain closed and food courts would operate at reduced capacity.
A student tested positive for coronavirus at Los Alamitos High School just a week after the school re-opened for on-campus learning, it was announced on Saturday.
U.C. Irvine students have also been returning to campus, but so far there has not been an outbreak, according to county CEO Frank Kim.
"My understanding is they're doing 4,000 tests and will be ramping up to 7,000 a week,'' Kim said. "So they're aggressively testing students and staff and that's a good thing.''
(© Copyright 2020 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. City News Service contributed to this report.)
