Orange County reports 113 new coronavirus cases Monday, looks at more reopenings Tuesday

Orange County reported 113 new cases of the coronavirus and no additional deaths on Monday, Sept. 7.

The county’s death toll remained 1,053; 49,845 people have tested positive since the pandemic began.

Case numbers typically wane over the weekend because of reporting lags. But still, Monday’s relatively low numbers are another encouraging sign as the county hopes to move up from the purple to the red tier of the state’s monitoring system by Tuesday.

Orange County has met the state’s metrics for at least two weeks.

The county’s new case rate per 100,000 residents over seven days is 5.6. To move to the next tier, the county has to be between 4 and 7.

Hospitalizations in the county continued to decline, dropping from 253 Sunday to 238, while the number of people in intensive-care units declined from 77 to 75, according to the Orange County Health Care Agency.

The rate of county residents testing positive for COVID-19 was at 5%, which is below the state’s desired threshold of 8%.

The Health Care Agency reported that 700,492 COVID-19 tests have been conducted, including 4,444 reported Monday. There have been 43,597 documented recoveries.

“This significant move to the red tier for Orange County indicates that we are hopefully getting the upper hand on COVID-19,” Supervisor Lisa Bartlett said last week.

” I look forward to cautiously opening up our local economy,” she added, “so we experience some level of normalcy once again in our day-to-day lives.”

Under the red tier of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s Blueprint for a Safer Economy unveiled Aug. 28, the county will be able to reopen movie theaters and restaurants for indoor dining at 25% capacity and churches for indoor worship at 25% capacity.

Shopping centers may expand from 25% capacity to half capacity under the red tier.

The county now meets all of the state’s metrics to move to the state’s red tier, from purple, the worst level.

Individual counties must meet state standards for new cases per 100,000 residents and testing-positivity rates, both over a seven-day average, to move up the ladder of tiers.

But even with the positive trends, the earliest Orange County’s schools can reopen for personal instruction is Sept. 22. County officials had argued for credit for time spent off the state’s coronavirus watch list before the state switched to the tier system, changing the way it evaluated progress against curbing the spread of coronavirus.

County officials, however, were told the state did not want to establish a precedent.

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