Good morning and welcome to the TimesOC newsletter. It’s Wednesday, Feb. 24. I’m Carol Cormaci, an editor new to this rotation with my colleagues, editor John Canalis and reporter Ben Brazil, to bring you the latest roundup of Orange County happenings.
It’s great news that, as of Saturday, Orange County hospitals had reported seeing a 45% reduction of COVID-19 patients arriving at their doorsteps over the previous two weeks. But the fits and starts of getting the vaccines to as many in the U.S. as possible, a promise most recently hindered by transportation issues caused by last week’s extreme weather conditions across the country’s heart, have been dispiriting to many.