NEW CASES of COVID-19 are up in this week’s report from the Orange County Health Care Agency (Shutterstock).

The coronavirus pandemic may be past its peak, but the disease hasn’t gone away.

Thursday’s report from the Orange County Health Care Agency – covering the week from Oct. 13-19 – showed an increase in  confirmed new cases to 1,427 compared to last week’s 1,328.

However, the other three major metrics tracking COVID-19 showed improvement. Deaths declined to seven from 29 and hospitalizations also fell, from 125 to 116.

The use of intensive care units to treat coronavirus patients went from 21 to 11.

To date, Orange County has had 672,033 confirmed cases and 7,495 deaths out of a population of 3.2 million.