While Orange County’s total COVID-19 new case counts continue to increase on a weekly basis, it’s clear that the cities that initially represented hot spots for the county are not the source of new cases in recent weeks.
South Orange County cities, including spots along the coast such as Laguna Beach and San Clemente, showed high per capita rates of reported cases for the month of March and beginning of April, and now appear well down the other side of the curve.
This is likely due to increased initial access to testing for residents in those areas, and a larger population base that travels for business and leisure.
The first graph represents new coronavirus cases in a dozen South OC cities, including those south of Irvine, along the coast and those more inland, like Rancho Santa Margarita, Mission Viejo, and Coto de Caza.
For the first five weeks ending April 9, there were 221 new cases reported in total. That figure fell by about 40% in the following five weeks ending May 14, when 132 total new cases were reported.
Data comes from the Orange County Health Agency and Business Journal research.
129 Cases/Day
Meanwhile, the rate at which the virus is spreading in the county is increasing.
There were a total of 2,889 new corona- virus cases reported for the county in the five weeks ending May 14. That’s up more than 60% from the 1,079 total new cases reported for the five weeks ending April 9.
In the week ending May 14, there were 129 new cases reported each day on average; up from 102 for the week ending May 7, and well above the average of 79 for the week ending April 30.
New increases are largely coming from North OC cities, including Anaheim and Santa Ana, the two largest cities in the county by population with a combined population of about 700,000. Anaheim and Santa Ana had a combined total of about 1,088 new cases in the five weeks ending May 14, up from 192 for the five weeks ending April 9.
The second graph shows new coronavirus cases for those two cities, as well as two other North OC hot spots, Garden Grove and Orange, which had 318 new cases for the five weeks ending May 14, up from 70 for the five weeks ending April 9.
Currently, the south county cities featured in the graph have about 6.5 cases per 10,000 residents; the four north county cities have 16.4 cases per 10,000 residents.
Testing across the county is also increasing: 61,619 of the county’s 3.2 million residents have received tests as of May 14.
In order to reopen, the county is expected to need 1.5 tests per 1,000 residents each day; for the week ending May 13, there were about 0.5 tests per 1,000 county residents conducted each day on average.
