SANTA ANA, Calif.—Orange County’s COVID-19 hospitalizations dropped below 200 on Oct. 17, falling from 204 Saturday to 191 Sunday, according to state figures. The number of those patients in intensive care fell from 37 to 35. The county had 23.4 percent of its ICU beds available and 70 percent of its ventilators. The latest figures come two days after the county reported 244 new cases of COVID-19 and five additional fatalities, raising the cumulative totals to 301,188 cases and 5,518 deaths since the pandemic began, according to the Orange County Health Care Agency. The OCHCA does not report case and death numbers on the weekend. “We’re in a gradual decline,” Dr. Regina Chinsio-Kwong, the county’s deputy county health officer, told reporters Friday. She added that “case rates are very slowly declining,” compared to previous surges when “case rates went down more significantly compared to this.” There has been a bump …