Riverside County bringing back daily COVID-19 data updates due to case uptick

COVID-19 concerns resurfacing across the Inland Empire

It's not just Los Angeles County, health officials in the Inland Empire are raising the red flags as the Delta variant continues to spread across California.

RIVERSIDE COUNTY, Calif. (CNS) - Citing a recent uptick in coronavirus infections, Riverside County will resume daily COVID updates after switching to once-a-week data updates last month, it was announced Thursday.

Riverside County Public Health Officer Dr. Geoffrey Leung posted the plan on Twitter Thursday afternoon, saying updates will be posted weekdays, although it was unclear the change will go into effect Friday.

Last month, county health officials switched from daily to weekly data updates on Wednesdays as part of an overhaul to their coronavirus "dashboard" and to make tallies easier to track.

County health officials reported this Wednesday that the number of coronavirus patients in intensive care units in Riverside County more than doubled over the last week.

According to the Riverside University Health System, 30 ICU patients with the virus are being treated countywide, an increase of 16 from seven days ago. The total number of people hospitalized with COVID-19 symptoms in the county is 155, up 61 from last week.

The agency said 4,657 deaths from virus-related complications have been recorded in the last 16 months, up 10 from last week.

The aggregate number of COVID cases recorded since the public health documentation period began in March 2020 is 304,060, an increase of 1,991 from last week.

The number of known active virus cases is 2,392, up 891 from last week's figures. The active count is derived by subtracting deaths and recoveries from the current total, according to the county Executive Office.

Verified patient recoveries countywide are 297,011.

The RUHS coronavirus portal can be accessed at www.rivcoph.org/coronavirus.