“As of today, 1 in 3 people in Los Angeles County has been infected with the virus,” said Mayor Eric Garcetti on Thursday.
The county estimates that a third of the county’s 10 million residents have been infected with the virus at some point since the pandemic began. This amounts to more than three times the number of infections that have been confirmed through tests in the county so far.
Given that, said the mayor, local officials were closely watching for any increase in the number of cases.
“County supervisors are … trying to find out if there should be more closures,” said Garcetti. “I think those are the obvious categories: whether schools remain open or not, closed gyms, public youth leagues.”
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“If there are new closings, this is the result of something like seeing another outbreak because of the spread of something like the UK variant.”
Likewise, said Garcetti, “If things continue to slow down a little or even more quickly, more closures may not be necessary. But the moment it rises as we saw in December at any pace like that, for sure. This is something we cannot sustain and, most importantly, our hospitals cannot and we would be in crisis there. “
Speaking of which, another 17,323 cases of Covid-19 were confirmed in LA County on Thursday. That’s an 18% increase in 24 hours, bringing the total number of lives lost to the virus to 975,299 and bringing the county closer to the 1 million mark.
The death toll from COVID-19 continued a relentless escalation in Los Angeles, with about 1,700 deaths from the virus confirmed just last week. In the last three days alone, around 900 deaths have been recorded in the region.
The county’s Department of Public Health announced another 287 deaths from the virus on Thursday, bringing the total number of deaths during the pandemic to 13,234. Health officials previously noted that about 170 people die in the county each day from all other causes combined.
Since last Thursday, the county has recorded 1,689 new deaths – equivalent to an average of one death every six minutes.
Daily update of COVID-19:
January 14, 2021
New cases: 17,323 (975,299 to date)
New deaths: 287 (13,234 to date)
Current hospitalizations: 7,906 pic.twitter.com/koNNoWkzhJ– LA Public Health (@lapublichealth) January 15, 2021
Infections and deaths have soared in the county since November, fueled by public meetings held in violation of health restrictions, workplace outbreaks and Thanksgiving holiday parties. The effect of the Christmas and New Year holidays is beginning to be seen in the number of infections, with the expectation that these cases will soon translate into more hospitalizations.
However, however, the number of people hospitalized in the county due to Covid has declined.
County officials on Thursday reported a total of 7,906 people hospitalized in the county due to Covid-19, down from more than 8,000 patients reported most of last week. The number of patients in intensive care unit beds has also dropped, but not as drastically. There were 1,699 ICU patients being treated for Covid on Thursday. This does not include the ICU’s demand for all other causes. The municipality has a total of approximately 2,500 licensed ICU beds.
The county’s Department of Health Services reported on Thursday a total of 570 non-ICU hospital beds available and only 42 adult ICU beds available. Last week, on average, 80% of ICU patients in the county were being treated for Covid-19, along with 54% of non-ICU patients.
County health services director Dr. Christina Ghaly on Wednesday urged people not to be fooled by complacency with the recent stabilization in the number of hospitals.
“Although the numbers have stabilized at this only timid number of 8,000, they have stabilized at a rate that is not really sustainable,” said Ghaly.
“This high plateau does not leave enough open beds to care for patients without Covid. And it still doesn’t allow us to be prepared for an additional attack from patients who may appear in the coming weeks in a potential post-holiday increase. ”
Ghaly said that county hospitals have not yet begun to see the results of the meetings and the transmission of the virus that probably occurred during the Christmas and New Year holidays.
“Even if the slight decline continues, we are nowhere near clean in the LA County hospital system,” she said. “Hospitals cannot sustain the high level of beds occupied by Covid patients.”
She added: “For there to be any significant relief for healthcare professionals, we need a rapid and significant decline in hospitalizations for a period of one to two months. Please don’t let this current number of daily hospitalizations seem normal to you just because it is stagnating. “
Public health director Barbara Ferrer warned that the county could also soon see an increase in the number of infections, thanks to a new highly contagious variant of the virus first discovered in the UK.
This variant has not yet been officially identified in Los Angeles County. But director of public health Barbara Ferrer warned that the variant is probably already here and has simply not been detected in the relatively limited number of tests conducted in search of the new strain.
“According to the latest available science, the UK variant does not make people sicker, but it is more transmissible, which means it can spread more easily,” said Ferrer on Wednesday. “Current experts’ projections predict that, if left unchecked, this variant could dominate locally in March.”
With the variant’s ability to move quickly from person to person, it can rapidly increase the number of infections, inevitably leading to more hospitalizations and ultimately more deaths, Ferrer said. She said that people need to continue taking all necessary precautions, without discarding the need to
stricter regulations to control the spread.
“We must be prepared to do more if the cases remain high,” she said.
“The job ahead of us requires that we take all necessary measures to reduce transmission.”
According to estimates released on Wednesday by the county’s Department of Health Services, the transmission rate for COVID-19 – the number of people a Covid patient infects with the virus – is hovering at about 0.97. Whenever the rate is 1 or higher, cases should increase.
County modeling also estimates that about 1 in 115 residents who are not hospitalized or quarantined are infected with the virus and are able to pass it on to others.
Ferrer noted that the average new daily cases in the county have increased by 1,092% since November, the average of daily deaths has increased by 1,133% and hospitalizations have increased by 875%.
The city’s news service contributed to this report.