LOS ANGELES – Los Angeles County reported 2,152 new cases of COVID-19 and 22 additional deaths Wednesday, bringing the county’s totals to 327,964 cases and 7,216 fatalities. View the latest detailed report by locations and demographics here.
The high number of new cases came one day after officials said it would be weeks before the county could move into a less-restrictive tier of the state’s four-tier economic-reopening roadmap.
The number of L.A. County residents hospitalized due to the virus also continued its recent spike Wednesday, increasing to 903 from 888 on Tuesday and 855 on Monday.
Dr. Mark Ghaly, California’s Health and Human Services secretary, noted that hospitalizations have increased by 31.6% statewide over the last two weeks, while the number of people in intensive care units was up nearly 30%. Ghaly also said rising case numbers statewide mean the situation will likely be even worse next week.
“As we look forward to next week and we see which counties may have missed their current tier threshold this week, we anticipate if things stay they way they are, that between this week and next week over half of California counties will have moved into a more restrictive tier,” Ghaly said. “And so that certainly is an indication that we’re concerned and that we have to keep a close watch on what’s happening.”
County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer gave the Board of Supervisors a recap of the county’s surging virus cases Tuesday, noting that the increases will stall hopes of moving out of the most restrictive “purple” Tier 1 of the state’s matrix.
“The earliest we would see this county move to Tier 2 would be four weeks from now, and that’s if every single person gets back to helping us slow the spread (of the virus),” Ferrer said.
L.A. County has been mired in the purple level since the tier system was implemented. For one week, it met the threshold to advance to the red tier, but counties must meet the guidelines for two consecutive weeks to move up the ladder, and Los Angeles couldn’t maintain the needed statistics.
Health officials have been blaming an increase in public and private gatherings for the surge, and they fear the upcoming winter holidays could exacerbate the problem.
“If we don’t slow the spread now, we’re heading into a very unfortunate holiday season,” Ferrer told the Board of Supervisors, urging all residents to re-commit to basic infection-control methods such as wearing face masks and practicing physical distancing.
The county has reported more than 2,000 new cases for six of the past seven days.
“Today, we celebrate and pay respect to our veterans for their service and sacrifice to our nation,” Ferrer said Wednesday. “If you are looking to celebrate Veterans Day, many events and celebrations in L.A. County have planned ways to pay homage to our veterans virtually. As more than 4,200 veterans have passed away from COVID-19 nationwide, we honor, celebrate and protect our veterans by doing our part to stop the spread of COVID-19.”
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tsparky says
If you look at the California COVID dashboard, the cases are up. But hospitalization is still lower than anytime from April to September. Deaths are lower than anytime since the 2nd week of April. There’s a reason that Newsom changed metrics from # of deaths and # of people hospitalized to just positive tests – it looks much worse that way.
So? says
Renowned epidemiologist tsparky nails it again.