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| "Visit the Zoo" |
—Voice of OC
Orange County is facing record-setting coronavirus case increases and hospitalizations as intensive care units keep seeing more virus patients, which could potentially jeopardize non virus treatments.
As of Monday, 877 OC residents were hospitalized, including 218 people in intensive care units.
During the July peak, 722 people were hospitalized, including 237 in ICUs.
Unlike the July spike, OC’s new peak comes as daily cases are increasing, not decreasing.
For the past week, OC is averaging over 1,400 new cases a day. Throughout the first half of October, the average was less than 200 new cases a day.
Over 2,000 new cases were reported Sunday and roughly 1,960 cases were reported Monday.
State public health officials estimate 12 to 13% of new cases will end up in hospitals two to three weeks down the road.
OC has 18% of its ICU beds left to handle virus patients, according to the county Health Care Agency.
Skyrocketing hospitalizations and case increases are worrying critical care doctors.
Dr. Michael Katz, a critical care doctor who treats virus patients in the ICU at St. Jude’s Medical Center, said ICU patients are usually discharged in a few days.
“Typically, we’re used to getting patients in and out. The flow of the hospital depends on that. We always have to have ICU beds available for patients coming in from the ER, heart attacks, strokes, etc. We also have to have some open for patients coming out of the operating room,” Katz said in a Monday phone interview.
But the pandemic has turned that on its head.
“The COVID patients, on average, are staying for many days to weeks. Some of them for months. Their care is too complicated and their condition is too unstable to move them to lower intensity care environments,” Katz said.
He said typically hospital staff plans for ICU staffing include an estimated number of people coming in from the emergency room, like heart attack patients, and some from the operating room.
But the pandemic has pushed planning to the limits because all the medical workers are already working, he said….
—Voice of OC
As Covid hospitalizations skyrocket across Orange County and the state, it should come as no surprise that people have tons of questions — especially about Gov. Gavin Newsom’s most recent shutdown order.
Yet amidst the ongoing pandemic, state and local leaders are increasingly avoiding realtime debate, much less inviting any kind of public accountability over their actions or spending decisions….
Here in Orange County, Don Wagner – the most vocal Newsom critic on the county board of supervisors – has taken the governor to task over his lack of cooperation with the legislature, lack of debate on the merits of actions like mask mandates and is ultimately questioning Newsom’s authority to take so many unilateral actions.
Today, Wagner will ask the Orange County Board of Supervisors to file supportive arguments in an ongoing legal case challenging Newsom’s authority....
Yet Wagner isn’t as excited about ensuring his own county government operates in a transparent manner over Coronavirus response or procurement, much less press relations.
County of Orange press conferences are just as restrictive as Newsom’s.
Reporters are only allowed one question with no follow ups. The entire question-and-answer period towards the end of what are billed as press conferences are generally shut down after about 15 minutes.
Once a week since March, former Supervisor (now Congresswoman) Michelle Steel was able to use the weekly press briefing as a campaign speech platform, rarely taking any questions from the press but taking up about the first 15 minutes of virtually all press conferences. After that, health care officials generally offered updates and then would take very limited questions from about a dozen outlets covering Southern California and Orange County….
Voice of OC has been asking the County of Orange for months for death data about Covid along with outbreaks.
The county refuses.
How are residents to make critical decisions for themselves about where to go without good data on what schools, workplaces and businesses are using good practices and getting good results, and which ones aren’t?
Instead, we are left with generalized guidelines that in some cases, seem confusing.
Consider that under the current shutdown orders, you can’t go to an outdoor playground but you can go to the mall.
In fact, county officials have essentially said it’s improper for them to enforce any state-mandated Covid rules….
Consider just a few weeks ago that both Wagner and Supervisor Lisa Bartlett were questioning Orange County’s rating in Newsom’s tier system, both publicly arguing that Orange County’s hospital capacity was solid and should be considered in further opening of the economy.
Both Wagner and Bartlett made it sound like local hospital capacity was something that could be counted on.
Heck, Wagner even publicly quoted the region’s hospital association as saying there were no alarm bells going off.
Yet weeks later, alarm bells are going off….
✅ Fauci: California had no choice but to impose stay-home orders -- Anthony Fauci said Monday he advised California officials that they "really don't have any choice" but to impose stay-at-home orders that more than 33 million residents are now living under. Kevin Yamamura Politico -- 12/7/20
✅ More California community college students are taking transfer-level courses, but critics say colleges must do more -- Community colleges across California have made significant progress in increasing access to classes that award transferable credits to students, but dozens of colleges are still offering many non-credit remedial courses — irking critics who say those colleges are neglecting their responsibilities under a new law. Michael Burke EdSource -- 12/8/20
—Inside Higher Ed
…Completion rates for four-year college are doing better than those of community colleges. Community colleges were the only type of institution to see an overall drop, of 0.5 percentage points, in the six-year completion rate. Completion rates for Hispanic community college students who were older declined by 2.2 percentage points, and those who delayed entry saw the largest decline at 4.8 percentage points. Completion rates for Asian community college students increased by 1.3 percentage points….
—Inside Higher Ed
The increased prevalence of online instruction at colleges across the country and heightened student activism for racial justice during summer 2020 resulted in a record number of student and faculty members who complained their free expression rights were being violated, according to the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, or FIRE, which published a new report today.
FIRE, a campus civil liberties advocacy organization, reviewed 287 complaints in June of alleged violations at colleges and universities nationwide, which was significantly more than previous summers. FIRE reviewed just 49 cases in 2018 and 2019, the report said. The report is FIRE’s annual “Spotlight on Speech Codes,” which reviewed 478 colleges’ written free speech policies and graded them based on whether they restrict protected campus expression. FIRE reviewed the policies of 372 four-year public institutions and 106 private institutions, according to the report.
FIRE reports that 78 institutions or faculty representative bodies have now endorsed or adopted the Chicago principles, which are standards for campus free expression developed by a Committee on Freedom of Expression at the University of Chicago in 2015. The principles state that “it is not the proper role of the University to attempt to shield individuals from ideas and opinions they find unwelcome, disagreeable, or even deeply offensive.”….
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| Today's OC Covid numbers |
