Vaccinations helped drive down deaths in OC, but may be trending back up due to delta variant

Vaccinations helped drive down deaths in OC, but may be trending back up due to delta variant

The death toll for August is now 16, the same as July’s. Andrew Noymer, an epidemiologist and UC Irvine [associate] professor of population health and disease prevention, told City News Service that he does not believe the county will see a death toll on the levels of the winter surge again because of the vaccines. … “Again, I’m watching hospitalizations the most closely and we’ve really plateaued,” Noymer said. “We’ve had seven days hovering around that 570 mark. So we’ve definitely found a peak so far … We’re not out of the woods yet, but I think it’s too early to see a surge associated with back to school.” Noymer, however, said, “These things are super impossible to predict.”