OC health officials expect COVID-19 surge to peak soon – Orange County Register

Orange County is in for a third straight week of rising COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations, but health officials expect they will soon see the number of cases drop as rapidly as South Africa and other countries. another where the omicron variant first struck, county officials said in a Tuesday, January 18 press conference.

While COVID-19 is having less of an impact on hospitals than last winter’s spike, the county’s health system is now “really being dealt with” as many healthcare workers get sick. sick or in isolation after being exposed to the virus, said OC Health Care Agency Director Dr. Clayton Chau.

The number of new cases and the rate of cases per 100,000 residents are among the highest ever – 15 children hospitalized with COVID-19 in OC is now the largest number in the entire pandemic.

However, “I hope that we are in a stable situation,” Chau said, adding, “if we have any indication from the experience of other countries around the world, once the omicron decrease, it will decrease very quickly.”

The county and state are helping some OC hospitals manage staff shortages, and more home tests – which are hard to get in a few weeks – will soon be available from the federal government, Chau said.

Streamed live on Facebook, the briefing was the first planned to become regular press conferences for the media and the public. It was organized by order of District 4 Supervisor Doug Chaffee, who became chairman of the Board of Supervisors this month.

Monday’s topic was COVID-19 updates, but Chaffee said future events will highlight county initiatives to address mental health, criminal justice reform and other issues. other topic.

“My idea was to promote the district whenever we could, showing what we were doing,” he said in an interview Monday.

Chaffee said he plans to hold press conferences most Tuesdays when the board is not in session, which is twice a month.

Shortly after the pandemic began, then-President Michelle Steel began holding COVID-19 briefings with OC Healthcare Administration officials that were streamed. When District 1 Supervisor Andrew Do took over as chairman, he stopped practicing.

When Katrina Foley was elected to the District 2 seat in March 2021, she released her own online COVID-19 update.

Chaffee said that while the health authority posts case numbers, hospital numbers and other COVID-19 data online, “it’s” better received “when the media can ask questions and more time to interpret the data to the public.

The press conferences will be streamed or can be replayed later on the OC government Facebook page, facebook.com/ocgov.