The winter coronavirus surge is here; Orange County sinks deep into strictest purple tier - OCRegister

The county’s rate of new coronavirus cases has tripled over the past two weeks in a buildup that public health officials suspect is fueled by “COVID fatigue.” And it is happening at the confluence of flu season and end-of-year holidays.

Gavin Newsom already pulled a public health “emergency brake” in the state last week, putting Orange County and most others in California into the most-restrictive purple tier of the state’s monitoring system, which forces many business and public sectors – restaurants, gyms, houses of worship – to go outdoors-only once again.

But there was no slowing the slide into trouble territory: Orange County is now seeing about 17 new cases of the virus each day for every 100,000 residents – up from a rate of 10.8 last week and well above a rate of 5.6 two weeks ago.

The share of swab tests coming back positive – the testing positivity rate – also rose sharply to 6.8% in updated stats released by the state’s Department of Public Health on Tuesday, Nov.

On July 9, at the height of the summer surge, Orange County’s case rate peaked at about 27 cases per 100,000 residents and, within a week, testing positivity topped out at 12.7%.

“It’s just sort of the inevitable fall wave,” Andrew Noymer, an epidemiologist and professor of public health at UC Irvine, said.

Tier assignments and metrics, which state officials had released each Tuesday since the four-tier system was introduced in late August, will be announced at least once a week going forward, officials said.

Most recently, Orange County has averaged 354 tests per day per 100,000 residents, beating the state average of 272 tests per 100,000.

County leaders this week launched free, do-it-yourself saliva test kits, available to Anaheim and Santa Ana residents first – where hot spots of the virus are still being tamped down – in another push to make widespread testing faster and easier.