Friday afternoon, while the Los Angeles Board of Supervisors met behind closed doors to discuss new, more stringent closing orders; how Mayor Eric Garcetti and California Governor Gavin Newsom appeared together to try to start vaccination efforts in the region; one of the main reasons for the urgency of these efforts became clear.
Earlier in the day, the Centers for Disease Control released their Weekly Morbidity and Mortality Report. The report revealed a new model of the spread of B.1.1.7, also known as the UK variant of Covid-19, which is estimated to be 50% more transmissible than previous strains.
According to the CDC, “In this model, the prevalence of B.1.1.7 is initially low, but because it is more transmissible than the current variants, it shows rapid growth in early 2021, becoming the predominant variant in March” . The result of this predominance is that “B.1.1.7 leads to a substantial change in the transmission path and a new phase of exponential growth” in the total of Covid-19 cases. Therefore, the report warns: “Efforts to prepare the health system for new peaks of cases are necessary”.
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Dr. Paul Simon, Director of Science for the LA County Department of Public Health, said on Friday that modeling the CDC “indicates that there is a little cause for concern. That this strain has the potential to spread very quickly in the country and potentially – because it has so many mutations – affect the ability of the tests to identify it ”.
B.1.1.7 has already been identified in San Diego and San Bernardino, and LA Director of Public Health, Barbara Ferrer, said this week that residents should assume that she is also in Los Angeles. “Current experts’ projections predict that, if left unchecked, this variant could dominate locally in March,” said Ferrer.
During the same press conference, Ferrer did not rule out the possibility of additional health restrictions imposed, especially given the still high numbers of Covid’s infection, hospitalizations and deaths.
The Department of Public Health confirmed 258 new deaths on Friday, marking the fourth consecutive day of more than 250 deaths due to the pandemic. This means that LA County has seen more than 1,000 Covid-related deaths in the past four days. Hospitalizations and ICU beds occupied by patients affected by viruses remained close to record levels. To date, the county has seen 989,928 positive cases from Covid and a total of 13,489 deaths. The county is likely to register 1 million cases in total this weekend.
Ferrer urged residents to continue to adhere to existing health restrictions, while suggesting that more may be needed.
“We must be prepared to do more if the cases remain high,” she said on Wednesday. “The job ahead of us requires that we take all necessary measures to reduce transmission.”
His words presaged the CDC’s guidance issued on Friday. He says: “Increasing the transmissibility of variant B.1.1.7 ensures the rigorous implementation of public health strategies to reduce transmission and lessen the potential impact of B.1.1.7, saving critical time to increase vaccination coverage. ” See the appearance of Garcetti and Newsom on Friday above. However, according to the CDC, “Increased transmissibility also means that greater-than-expected vaccination coverage must be achieved to achieve the same level of disease control to protect the public compared to less transmissible variants” .
Thursday night, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti addressed the possible closing of new deals or other restrictions and said, “This is something I know the county is looking for.”
Asked about the businesses that could be affected, Garcetti said: “I think those are the obvious categories: whether schools remain open or not, internal academies, youth public leagues.”
The Mayor said that, given the potential danger of the virus variant in the UK, “we must always be open and I will always follow our public health science and advice [leaders] … And the county supervisors, who I know are making very difficult decisions and are incredible leaders now, trying to figure out whether or not there should be more closings. “
“But at the moment [the transmission rate] it goes up, as we saw in December, at any rate like that, this is absolutely something that we cannot sustain and, most importantly, our hospitals cannot, and we would go into crisis there, ”he said.
Dr. Simon emphasized, however, that health restrictions imposed by the county are only effective if people actually comply with them.
“We close a lot here, and the audience is just exhausted, I think,” he said. “And we’ve seen less adherence to restrictions … We can implement additional restrictions, but unless they are met, they won’t have the desired impact. We are not a police state. It would be very difficult to use some of the extreme measures that have been taken in other countries. “
He pleaded with people to comply with the restrictions as much as possible and to continue doing what they could to minimize the risk of infection.
“Even if people can’t do everything all the time, try to minimize the risk,” he said. “It is difficult to deal with absolute things – never leave home … or never see anyone outside your home. This is a difficult message. “
At the end of the day, he said: “We are just encouraging people to stand their ground. We are walking on a favorable path with the vaccine ”.
Good news in the CDC report is that, in modeling, “after B.1.1.7 became the dominant variant, its transmission was substantially reduced”. This may, however, be because everyone already has it.