As I mentioned yesterday (or was it the day before?), Orange County is well below four of the five thresholds the state set forth for getting off the county watch list, and its been that way for several weeks now. And the local media is now recognizing that...
The state had frozen its pandemic watch list because lagging COVID-19 testing data led to inaccurate metrics.
www.ocregister.com
"Orange County remains on the watch list, but there are positive signs that local rates of new cases and what percentage of the tests taken are positive – two measures that have kept Orange County above state limits – are trending toward meeting public health goals.
Trends of case rates, testing positivity and other data points monitored daily by state and county health officials indicate neighboring San Diego County could be taken off the watch list as early as Tuesday, Aug. 18, Gov. Gavin Newsom said during a press conference Monday, Aug. 17."
As of today, the five metrics that the state is tracking for each county look like this for OC. Great news!
Testing Positivity Must Not Be Above 8% - Current OC rate 6.2%
Hospitalization 3-Day Average Usage Must Not Increase By Over 10% - OC rate has declined by 4.8%
ICU Beds Available Must Not Go Below 20% - Current OC ICU Beds Available 31%
Ventilators Available Must Not Go Below 25% - Current OC Ventilators Available 56%
Case Rate Per 100,000 Must Be Below 25 - Current OC Case Rate Per 100,000 is 106
It's that last one, Case Rate Per 100,000, where OC is still above state thresholds. There's about 6,000 to 7,000 Covid tests being performed and logged into the system in OC ever day right now. There are just over 1 Million Covid tests being performed daily in the United States now. It would seem that OC would be off the list within a few weeks, if current trends continue.
ArcGIS Dashboards
ochca.maps.arcgis.com