California continued to see a dramatic rise in the number of COVID-19 deaths on Sunday as the state passed another milestone: 30,000 deaths.
The pace of daily COVID-19 deaths has increased since the most recent increase began in November. On November 3, California reported about 40 deaths a day; on Thanksgiving Day, about 70 deaths a day; and at Christmas, about 220 deaths per day. On Sunday night, California recorded an average of 481 deaths per day in the previous week, a record.
It took California about six months to register its 10,000th death, which occurred on August 6, and another four months to register its 20,000th death, which was recorded on December 8. California recorded its 30,003rd death on Sunday night, just about a month later, according to a survey of local health jurisdictions conducted by The Times.
Five of the highest one-day death counts for California were recorded last week.
The most recent record for single-day deaths in California occurred on Friday, when 685 deaths were recorded, breaking the previous record of 575 deaths recorded on New Year’s Eve. Another 456 deaths were reported across the state on Saturday, the sixth highest count in a single day, and 297 on Sunday.
California is registering an increasing number of daily coronavirus cases after a post-Christmas lull. From December 16 to 22, the state averaged 45,000 cases of coronavirus a day, a record; which stabilized between 35,000 and 40,000 cases a day until Thursday.
But the seven-day average of new cases rose to almost 45,000 on Sunday night, the second highest number in the pandemic.
The postnatal increase in new cases of coronavirus is growing every day. The average number of new coronavirus cases in LA County on Thursday, Friday and Saturday was about 18,000 – significantly above the average of about 14,000 new cases per day in the past week.
“This is clearly the latest increase in winter and New Year holidays – without a doubt,” said Dr. Paul Simon, head of science for the LA County Department of Public Health, on Friday. “It started gradually at the beginning of the week, but [definitely] here on the last day or two. “
A search in local health jurisdictions in LA County found 13,247 new cases of coronavirus reported on Sunday and 162 deaths. Daily counts on Sundays are generally lower due to delays in reporting over the weekend.
LA County now averages about 211 COVID-19 deaths per day, a record. It’s a much faster pace than the number for Christmas, when LA County averaged 80 deaths a day, and Thanksgiving Day, when about 30 deaths a day were recorded.
There continues to be continued pressure on California’s overburdened intensive care units. According to data released on Sunday, the number of patients with COVID-19 in state ICUs rose to a record 4,863 on Saturday. That’s almost three times the number for Thanksgiving.
About 22,000 patients with COVID-19 were in California hospitals on Saturday. That number has remained relatively stable over the past week. Authorities expect the number of hospitalizations to start getting worse this week as people infected at Christmas start to get sick. What is not yet fully known is how bad the surge in hospitals after the holiday will be.
LA County COVID-19 hospitalizations have remained stable for the past few days, ranging from 7,900 to 8,100 patients, including about 1,700 in the ICU.
The ICUs in LA County are effectively out of space. There are usually about 2,000 ICU beds with employees in the county, and last week, about 400 were occupied by non-COVID patients.
In the past few days, the ICU beds available in the county have dropped to zero or one in each of the following regions: downtown LA, Westside, southeast LA county, San Gabriel Valley and Antelope Valley. The South Bay-and-Long Beach region had only three ICU beds available in the past few days, and the San Fernando Valley, only six.
An increasing percentage of people infected with the coronavirus are dying of COVID-19 in LA County without any underlying health problems. At the beginning of the pandemic, 7% of all COVID-19 deaths in LA County occurred among people without underlying medical conditions; now, 14% of cumulative deaths occur among people without underlying medical conditions.
Although the increase in the California pandemic is dire, the state has one of the lowest cumulative numbers of deaths from COVID-19 on a per capita basis, ranking 38th out of 50 states, probably as a result of the initial imposition of the order of staying home at the close of spring and summer for certain high-risk companies. The cumulative mortality rate for COVID-19 in New Jersey is three times that of California, that of Arizona is twice that and that of Florida is 1.5 times higher.
Times staff writer Thomas Suh Lauder contributed to this report.