(TNS) - Dec. 20—Orange County logged another single-day record on Sunday, Dec. 20, for new reported cases of the coronavirus as a winter surge spreads through its communities and packs local hospitals.

The additional 4,606 cases reported Sunday by the OC Health Care Agency in its daily update put the cumulative total since tracking began at 124,428 people testing positive for the virus.

Some 1,682 people needed hospitalization as of Sunday, 375 of them in intensive care units.

Predictive modelers told California regulators on Thursday that the state’s antiquated rules for calculating wildfire risk when setting property insurance rates discourage innovative mitigation measures that could ultimately reduce losses.

Nancy P. Watkins, a principal and consulting actuary for Milliman, said during a webcast on “home hardening” hosted by the state Department of Insurance that California is one of only three states that doesn’t allow insurers to use catastrophe modeling to determine wildfire risk. Rates must be based on historical losses.

Watkins said that is a “very simple” method of ratemaking. “It’s kind of like expecting the Rocky Mountains to be flat because we just drove through Kansas and Missouri,” she said.

Powerful gusts pushed flames from a wildfire through Southern California canyons on Thursday, one of several blazes that burned near homes and forced residents to flee amid elevated fire risk for most of the region that prompted utilities to cut off power to hundreds of thousands.

The biggest blaze began late Wednesday as a house fire in Orange County’s Silverado Canyon, where gusts topped 70 mph.

“When crews arrived it was a fully engulfed house and the winds were extremely strong and they pushed flames into the vegetation,” said Colleen Windsor, a spokeswoman for the county’s Fire Authority.

California has asked hospitals to ramp up their coronavirus testing amid a surge of new cases, urging them to test health care workers at least once per week while testing all new patients before admitting them.

California reported 7,787 confirmed coronavirus hospitalizations on Monday, with 1,812 of those patients in intensive care units. Statewide, 75% of intensive care beds are filled and state officials expect to reach capacity by mid-December.

The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign recently completed its in-person fall semester. And as the nation watches the COVID-19 virus surge, the school continues the virus testing program that has worked so well since it began in August.

The COVID-19 positivity rate for the entire student body and faculty for the past seven days was 0.45 percent. The number of total tests given since the inception of the program? A staggering 908,158. But it’s that rate of testing and contact tracing that reduced the positivity rate from a high of nearly 3 percent in late August to what it is now.

The California Public Utilities Commission has raised concerns over certain deficiencies that it says could affect PG&E Corp.’s ability to provide safe and reliable service, the power provider disclosed in a regulatory filing on Wednesday.

The regulator, in a letter dated Tuesday, said it will require remediation on specific issues identified in the San Francisco-based utility’s wildfire mitigation plan progress reports.

Co-workers Rajdeep Singh, 35, of Rocklin, Calif., and David Bailey, Jr., 29, of Sacramento, were arrested on multiple counts of insurance fraud and arson after allegedly conspiring to commit vehicular arson in order to receive an undeserved insurance payout of over $30,000.

The Sacramento Fire Department on June 24 responded to a vehicle fire in a parking lot and identified the vehicle as a 2016 Honda Pilot. The morning of the fire, the registered owner’s son, Singh, arrived on the scene and claimed the vehicle had been stolen while he was working at his job, Primetime Autos, a used car dealership where he worked as a finance manager.

Harvest season in Northern California’s wine country is what dream weddings are made of: ripe grapevines and golden sunsets provide ceremonies an alluring backdrop that every year draws millions of visitors.

But harvest season now overlaps with fire season as wildfires, too, have become a yearly reality in the region.

In three of the past four years, major wildfires driven by a changing climate have devastated parts of the world-famous region, leaving little doubt that it’s vulnerable to smoke, flames and blackouts in the fall.

Nov. 11—News this week from Pfizer pharmaceuticals of a coronavirus vaccine breakthrough is prompting Sacramento and Northern California healthcare providers to step up preparations for mass distribution.

That includes the UC Davis Medical Center in Sacramento, which is in talks with state officials about serving as a vaccine storage and distribution site for Northern California. The vaccine requires specialized low-temperature freezers for storage, and UC Davis has some and is buying more.