Author: Phyllis Agran, MD, MPH, FAAP

While fully vaccinated/boosted individuals are less likely to experience severe disease requiring hospitalization, Orange County is now considered a “high transmission area” with hundreds and hundreds of new cases and re-infections of COVID-19 being reported across the County every day.

It’s that time of the year again — pool season! As temperatures rise, there’s nothing more fun for kids to do than splash away in the nearest pool.

January 20th marked the second anniversary of the first case of COVID-19 reported in the United States.

Since that time, more than 79 million cases have been reported throughout the nation and nearly one million of our fellow Americans have died from this horrible virus.

On January 10th, the OC Health Care Agency reported a staggering 22,945 new cases of COVID-19 for the day; and 964 patients hospitalized with COVID-19. (87% of those hospitalized are unvaccinated.)

During the same time period, there have been 7,710 new cases of COVID-19 reported here in Irvine, and we have lost another neighbor to the virus.