Officials report nearly 30,000 new cases in two days – deadline

The ongoing coronavirus pandemic continues to make the otherwise joyous and bright holiday season a period of darkness and loss as Los Angeles Public Health officials confirm 29,464 new cases of Covid-19 in just two days.

Authorities confirmed 13,185 and five deaths on Saturday and 15,538 cases and 131 deaths on Friday. There are also 6,770 people currently hospitalized for Covid-19 in Los Angeles County. According to Public Health, the number of deaths reported on Saturday is underestimated due to the delay in notification associated with an outage of the Spectrum Service and the Christmas holiday.

To date, health officials have identified a total of 672,069 cases of Covid-19 in LA County and have reported a total of 9,438 deaths.

The latest report comes a few days after LA County and California have passed terrible milestones during this holiday season. On Tuesday, LA exceeded 9,000 deaths. On Friday, California became the first state to exceed 2 million cases of Covid-19 and its remaining statewide ICU capacity dropped to zero.

Despite the steady increase in cases of Covid-19, which may increase in the coming weeks due to vacation travel, public health officials continue to urge LA County to use the same strategies that have expanded since the beginning of the pandemic: avoid encounters with people outside your home, wear face masks around other people and keep physical distance when possible.

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