Voice of OC (https://voiceofoc.org/author/bpho/)
As of Monday, 14 people have died from the novel coronavirus in Orange County and 130 are hospitalized as the number of confirmed cases reached 882 out of roughly 10,500 people tested.
Local hospitals, eyeing surges in coronavirus cases in other parts of the country, are stretching out their capacity to a total goal of 5,367 beds available countywide, and county health care agency officials say the medical facilities are more than 60% full.
With OC jails experiencing a novel coronavirus outbreak, County officials are beginning to early release about scores of prisoners early and workers are getting apprehensive. Meanwhile, a group of criminal defense attorneys are asking a federal judge to clear out the jails.
While bus drivers and operations employees directly employed by OCTA get to keep their jobs and even their pay as some stay home, bus drivers employed through two private contractors the agency gives money to have been laid off, and will see their benefits follow their jobs out the door.
With so many remote local government meetings on the horizon, and so many technical glitches on the part of the county and cities regarding public comment, there’s a rising tide of worry. Some are calling for delays on public planning hearings, like tonight’s debate on a controversial building project in Santa Ana called One Broadway Plaza, until video and audio feeds at city council and other public chambers are adapted for remote viewing audiences.
It would be the latest city to join a growing list banning evictions throughout the county amid the coronavirus public health emergency. Many residents in Little Saigon area live in rental units with many others living in accessory dwelling units and mobile homes.
In-person voting has been cancelled for a special recall election in Westminster. It’s still up in the air whether Santa Ana’s special recall election will follow suit. Meanwhile, county elections officials will proceed to review a referendum movement against a controversial Santa Ana apartments project and a ballot initiative to relocate a planned Veteran’s Cemetery in Irvine.
The new measures will result in less people in the jails, reads an administrative order from OC Superior Presiding Judge Kirk Nakamura, “thus alleviating some of the pressures for arraignments within 48 hours and preliminary hearings within 10 days.”
Doctors in at least one OC hospital, UC Irvine Medical Center, are ringing alarm bells of crucial supply shortages and a lack of adequate response by administrators to a local outbreak of the novel coronavirus.
It’s the first round of cuts to bus service transportation officials have made responding to the public safety crisis, which has caused sharp drops in bus boardings for an agency that sees ridership fall year-by-year.