The numbers of hospitalizations, however, continued to drop, and the current rate of people testing positive for the virus in the municipality dropped to 2.5%, just above the state rate of 2.1%, according to figures released Thursday. market.
According to state data, there were 1,341 people hospitalized in the municipality until Thursday, with 429 people in intensive care.
But the county reported 2,253 new infections, the highest number in a single day since February 20, when 2,393 cases were announced. Health officials said they will closely monitor new case numbers and other indicators, in the hope that the increase will not become a trend.
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The new cases, combined with 67 reported by health officials in Long Beach and 13 by Pasadena, increased the cumulative total across the county since the pandemic began to 1,198,178.
The county also announced another 119 deaths from COVID-19, with Long Beach and Pasadena, each adding an additional fatality. The new deaths increased the total death toll in the county to 21,780.
County public health director Barbara Ferrer noted on Wednesday that the daily number of virus deaths remained in the triple digits, even with other COVID metrics trending down. She said that with hospital numbers continuing to decline, she hopes that the number of fatalities will also start to fall.
Health officials have issued another warning against leisure travel in light of the upcoming spring break, emphasizing that anyone traveling outside the area will still need to be quarantined for 10 days when they return to Los Angeles County.
“We may be within weeks of reducing transmission in LA County enough that additional reopenings are allowed,” said Ferrer in a statement on Thursday. it could lead to another outbreak that, frankly, would be almost impossible to tolerate. Traveling increases the risk of obtaining and disseminating COVID-19. To avoid this, postpone the trip and continue doing your part to slow down the spread so that our recovery journey is not left out. ”
Ferrer said on Wednesday that the county confirmed the first case of a COVID variant discovered in Brazil, and the number of cases of a variant originating in the UK rose to 27, a 50% jump from last week’s 18 cases. . And a California variant is becoming increasingly dominant, with county officials detecting the mutation in 31 of the 55 specimens that have been tested specifically for it.
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Meanwhile, Governor Gavin Newsom announced on Wednesday that the first cases of a New York variant were detected in Southern California, although he did not specify where. All variants are believed to be passed more easily from person to person, and federal officials have expressed concern that the New York variant may be more resistant to current vaccines.
The emergence of variants, although not unexpected, is keeping health officials on the alert, even as COVID’s conditions continue to improve.
Los Angeles County is on its way out of the restrictive purple layer of the state’s four-tier economic reopening roadmap in late March. If it moves to the less restrictive red level, more companies may be allowed to open, including in-house restaurants, cinemas and fitness centers, all with limited capacity.
Figures released by the state on Tuesday put the county’s adjusted average daily rate of new COVID-19 infections at 7.2 per 100,000 residents. If that number drops to 7 per 100,000 residents and remains at that level for two weeks, the county could move out of the state’s restrictive purple layer of the “Safer Economy Project” and move to the red layer.
Meanwhile, the state announced a major policy change on Thursday, diverting 40% of all vaccine supplies to people in low-income communities hard hit by the pandemic. In conjunction with this change, when the state reaches selected milestones in the number of vaccinations in these communities, it will adjust the required case rates to allow counties to more easily move forward with the reopening plan.
The change to the red level of the project would also allow the restart of face-to-face instruction for students from the 7th to the 12th grade. The municipality already meets the requirements for face-to-face classes from preschool to sixth grade.
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