One in three Los Angeles County residents has been infected with the coronavirus, according to new estimates from county scientists, a surprising sign of how rapidly the virus is spreading in the affected region.
The estimate, based on scientific models, means that authorities believe that more than 3 million of LA County’s 10 million residents have been infected with the coronavirus, including nearly 13,000 who have died.
This is more than triple the cumulative number of coronavirus cases that have been confirmed by tests. The authorities have long believed that the tests capture only a certain percentage of people infected, because many with the virus have no symptoms or suffer only mild symptoms.
The growing number of infected people has slowed down the transmission of the coronavirus, as the virus is increasingly coming into contact with people who have survived the infection and are likely to have developed immunity.
“Unfortunately, we are still engaging in behaviors that facilitate the spread of the virus, so it is still possible to find many people susceptible to infection,” said Dr. Roger Lewis, COVID-19 director of hospital demand modeling at the County Department of LA for Health Services.
About 75% of the LA county population will need to be immune to the virus through widespread vaccinations to drastically reduce its spread, Lewis estimated. Even if half the population of LA County was immune, “and yet we decide to just pretend that we don’t need to take precautions, we will still have a very, very devastating pandemic.”
LA County averaged more than 15,000 new cases of coronavirus a day last week – one of the highest rates ever seen in the pandemic.
Overtaking 15,000 new cases of coronavirus a day takes the county to a level that officials have warned could lead to crowded Los Angeles hospitals to an even worse catastrophe, depleting resources and increasing staff to a point that health officials may have. Of choose which patients receive attention from intensive care nurses and respiratory therapists and access to ventilators and which patients receive palliative care.
Authorities have been asking residents to take even more precautions to avoid falling ill.
When leaving home to access essential services, said LA County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer, people should bring wet wipes to disinfect their cell phones, car keys, workstations and door handles – anything they can play and that others have also played. Health officials have also suggested avoiding eating or drinking with someone who is not at home, washing or hand washing every hour if you are around other people and take a break from shopping.
They also issued a new recommendation: People who live with elderly residents or an underlying medical condition and need to leave the home should wear a mask at home.
More than 1,600 dead in a week
More than 1,600 people in Los Angeles County died of COVID-19 in the past week – a number that Ferrer called “tragic, disturbing and, frankly, oppressive” and an extraordinary danger sign when the possibly most contagious variant of the virus begins to spread in California.
Follow virus precautions “as if your life or the life of a loved one depends on it,” she said during a meeting on Wednesday. “Because you can.”
During the weeklong period that ended on Wednesday, an average of 232 people died daily from COVID-19 across the county, according to data compiled by The Times. By comparison, the number of confirmed deaths in the Northridge earthquake – which hit Southland almost exactly 27 years ago – was 57.
In the past seven days alone, the county has set and tied its daily record for new coronavirus-related deaths, at 318.
The last week represents an acceleration, although not an aberration. A total of 2,904 LA county residents have died of COVID-19 in the past 14 days – a figure that represents almost a quarter of the county’s cumulative death toll, which is almost 13,000.
“Your infection can lead to dozens of other infections in a matter of a few days, and someone along that transmission path may very well die of COVID-19,” said Ferrer. “These times are not normal, so we cannot go out and continue acting as if nothing is happening.”
Ferrer did not rule out issuing additional restrictions.
“We are considering all options right now,” she said on Wednesday, without elaborating on what the new orders would look like.
“We are very, very concerned about the continuing high number of cases here,” said Ferrer, “and I feel like there really isn’t a big window here to try to get the increase under control.”
COVID-19 hospitalizations stabilize, but at a high rate
In LA County, new COVID-19 hospitalizations have stabilized for the time being, even with signs of a slight decline. But hospitals are still overburdened and hospitalizations are extraordinarily high; the ICU at the Gardena Memorial Hospital, for example, is 320% occupied.
In the past few weeks, an average of 700 to 850 new patients a day with coronavirus infections have been admitted to hospitals in LA County – a number that has pressured hospitals to prepare for the need for rationing care.
“This is three times greater than what was seen at the beginning of the pandemic,” said Dr. Christina Ghaly, director of health services for LA County.
While the stable numbers are good news, they probably represent a stabilization in the broadcast that occurred after Thanksgiving – when LA and California county officials issued orders to stay home – but before Christmas, said Ghaly.
It will take more time to see the effect of Christmas and New Year meetings on hospitalizations, Ghaly said: “We just don’t have the information available at this point to determine whether or not this increase has occurred and, if so, how those numbers are going to rise. ”
If there was a big increase in the transmission of the virus during the holidays, “it would be absolutely devastating for our hospitals,” she said. The mere fact of sustaining current levels of hospitalizations for COVID-19 compromises the care of future patients with COVID-19 and others who are experiencing illnesses and emergencies unrelated to COVID, such as strokes and heart attacks.
“For there to be any significant relief for healthcare professionals, we need a rapid and significant decline in hospitalizations for a period of at least one to two months,” said Ghaly. “Please, don’t let the current number of daily hospitalizations seem normal to you just because it’s stagnant. … There is no precedent in the course of this Los Angeles County pandemic, and everyone should continue to worry about what might happen if hospitalizations start to increase again. “
Even if transmission was relatively controlled at Christmas and New Year, with – on average – each infected person transmitting the virus to someone else, said Ghaly, “we would still expect to see a very high continuous demand for hospital services with a continuous limited supply of hospital beds – as well as, in particular, ICU beds – in the next four weeks. “
Hospital morgues are overloaded
Throughout Southern California, hospitals are overcrowded in a way never seen in modern history. In Ventura County, on Tuesday, there were a total of 1,002 hospitalized patients – 448 of them infected with the coronavirus. “I don’t know if we’ve had so many patients hospitalized in our county at the same time,” said Steve Carroll, Ventura County’s emergency medical services administrator.
“It doesn’t seem to be improving, unfortunately,” Carroll told the Ventura County Board of Supervisors. “All hospitals are always overloaded.”
The slight decrease in hospitalizations for COVID-19 seen by state officials did not happen in Ventura County, where they are at their highest, said Dr. Robert Levin, Ventura County health officer. “This week is critical. And I think we’ll know in the next five days or so by looking at our hospital census where we’re going with this. “
Some hospital morgues are full and hospitals are experiencing delays of up to three days to remove the dead from their crypts and take them to the morgue. In some cases, a morgue can handle only four embalming a day and will quickly face a backup if more than four bodies a day are received. A morgue said it usually served seven to eight families a week; it is now dealing with 50, said Carroll.
Ventura County recorded 388 cumulative COVID-19 deaths; almost half of them, 189, have been reported since mid-December.
“Many of us have seen what happened in New York and Italy and have seen horrible scenes. And we’re getting close, ”said Ventura County supervisor, Carmen Ramirez.
Grandparents are dying
In Riverside County, there have been days when 10 of its hospitals are using 100%, or more than their total licensed bed capacity, said Bruce Barton, Riverside County’s director of emergency management.
In Orange County, COVID-19 is devastating families. Dr. Clayton Chau, director of the Orange County Health Agency, told the story of grandparents who were adopting their eighth-grade granddaughter, whose mother died of cancer a few years ago.
“They just died of COVID. Both, ”Chau said at a meeting of the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday, in a choked voice. “We need to do something fast in our community. It is not just reopening our economy that is important. But it is about taking care of our vulnerable community. Our elderly are dying. “
Times staff writer Dakota Smith contributed to this report, as did Paul Sisson, Jonathan Wosen and Lori Weisberg of the San Diego Union-Tribune.