COVID-19 in Orange county

The Downplaying of Orange County’s Coronavirus Numbers. Michelle Steel, chairwoman of the Orange County Board of Supervisors, contradicts actual data reports as she speaks about coronavirus at the county's weekly news conference on June 18, 2020. 

Why Orange County officials have been downplaying COVID data.  OC leaders continue to downplay the COVID-19 data, and in some cases, misrepresent it. KCRW talks about this with Gustavo Arellano, host of Orange County Line.

Can Orange County Handle a Spike in Coronavirus Hospitalizations? Orange County’s Coronavirus cases and hospitalizations are seeing dramatic increases as hospitals around OC are being pushed to their limits, while experts warn hospitals could be overloaded. 

It’s time for O.C. to step up and take responsibility for mitigating the COVID-19 crisis. We can only test about 0.6 residents a day per 1,000 residents. That number is suggested to be at 1.5 per 1,000 before attempting to reopen. 

Coronavirus Hospitalizations Have Been Rising in OC, Despite Claims of ‘Flattened’ Curve. Coronavirus hospitalizations have been rising in Orange County – up 80 percent over the last four weeks, according hospital data – despite widely-shared claims by county supervisors that the curve has “flflflflflflattened” and is “trending down.”

Mistake led to overcount of coronavirus testing in Orange County.  Orange County erroneously inflated its COVID-19 testing numbers for more than a month — logging 30,000 more tests than it should have — they reported total tests performed, but not how many individuals were tested (some people are tested multiple times).