New figures from the Los Angeles Department of Health Services seem to confirm one of health experts’ worst fears. Authorities have long warned of an exponentially increasing number of deaths if hospitals are overwhelmed with cases of Covid-19 and patients can no longer receive the same high standard of care.
Estimates released on Wednesday by LA Health Services showed that, since November 3, about 23% of people hospitalized due to Covid-19 have died – up from 12% in September and October. The average hospital stay for patients increased to more than nine days, compared to less than seven in October.
Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer said the county’s seven-day average daily death toll was 179 on January 10, dropping to 174 on January 12. But on Wednesday, she reported 262 deaths, bringing the local death toll during the pandemic to 14,384.
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Hospital ICU units have been inundated with patients with viruses for at least the past month. Last week, Director of Health Services, Dr. Christina Ghaly, revealed that 75% of patients in county intensive care units had Covid. And the capacity of these wards has been increased to almost double their usual limit. At some point, these stresses compromise care and lead to more deaths.
But as the deaths persist, the county has begun to see a drop in the daily number of new cases, along with declines in general hospitalizations and the test’s positive rate. Ferrer reported 6,492 new cases on Wednesday, the lowest total in weeks, although she said the number may be low due to delays in reporting and the lack of test availability over the holiday weekend.
Ferrer said the county average was more than 15,000 new daily cases on January 8, with the average dropping to about 10,000 a week later.
The average seven-day rate for people who tested positive for the virus was 14% on Wednesday, up from more than 20% in late December. The number of people hospitalized averaged more than 8,000 on January 5, dropping to 7,383 on January 15. As of Wednesday, there were 7,263 people hospitalized in the county, according to state data, including 1,692 in intensive care.
“Although it is too early to say whether we are really seeing a significant decline in the sudden increase … we are very hopeful that the actions taken by many are starting to work,” she said. “Unfortunately, even though cases are starting to decline, these numbers are still very high and continue to generate overcrowding in hospitals and a high number of deaths.
“The reality for us is that Covid-19 is still rampant in our workplaces, in our neighborhoods and in every corner of this county,” she said.
Ferrer also emphasized that, while hospitalization numbers have dropped, they still remain dangerously high.
“So the end is not yet in sight,” she said. “With a high number of daily cases, hundreds of people will need hospitalizations every week.”
A greater concern may be virus variants that may increase numbers again, even as the state progresses. Chief among them are the new strains of the virus that were recently discovered in the state.
Over the weekend, the Los Angeles Department of Public Health announced that the so-called British variant of Covid-19, known as B.1.1.7, had been identified in the region. B.1.1.7 is considered up to 50% more transmissible than the most widespread form of the virus. The number of LA residents infected with the UK variant was still considered small.
Then, on Monday, the California Department of Public Health revealed that another lesser-known strain was also circulating in the county. Called CAL.20C, the variant appears to have appeared in the state in July, but it only began to spread significantly in November.
According The New York Times, CAL.20C was found in more than half of California test samples analyzed genomically in mid-January. The number of these samples analyzed, it should be noted, is much smaller than the total number of daily Covid-19 tests in the state.
But Eric Vail, the director of molecular pathology at Cedars-Sinai, told the Times that CAL.20C may have played a role in the increase in cases that overwhelmed Southern California hospitals earlier this month. “I am quite confident that this is a more infectious strain of the virus,” said Dr. Vail. Other experts were not so sure.
The 6,492 new cases reported on Wednesday increased the cumulative total across the entire pandemic county to 1,038,092.
Ferrer continued to ask for patience among people trying to make appointments for the COVID-19 vaccines, acknowledging problems on the website that crashed the system for several hours on Tuesday after the county announced that people 65 and older could be vaccinated.
The site – vaccinatelacounty.com – is up and running again, but due to the limited supply of vaccines, the appointments are limited.
The county also expanded the capacity of its call reservation system and urged residents to use the call system only if they cannot make inquiries through the website.
Appointments beyond this week remain unclear due to the dramatic shortage in the county’s supply of vaccine doses.
Ferrer said on Wednesday that the county now expects to receive about 143,900 more doses of vaccines next week. However, as people need to receive two doses of the drug, three to four weeks apart, most of the vaccine that will arrive next week will be used to give second doses to people who have already received their first injection.
She estimated that only 37,900 of the doses that will come next week will be available for people to receive their first dose.
Ferrer also said that with the elderly included, the number of residents in the county now authorized to receive the vaccine is 4 million. So far, she noted, LA has received 650,000 doses.
“This is what I mean by a serious supply problem,” said Ferrer. “We are simply not getting enough doses of vaccine to move as fast as we and you would like.”
She said that by the end of last week, the municipality had received 685,000 doses, with 307,000 used so far for the first doses and 87,000 for the second doses. The county is still working to complete the vaccination of hundreds of thousands of health workers with the remaining doses, even while expanding access to people aged 65 and over.
Ferrer noted that about 30,000 doses of the Modern vaccine the county received were withdrawn from circulation by state order, after allergic reactions suffered by half a dozen people in San Diego. Ferrer said that some doses of the same batch have already been administered in Los Angeles County, with no reports of allergic reactions. But the remaining doses of the batch remain on hold until the state completes its investigation into the San Diego cases.
County Chairman of the Board of Supervisors Hilda Solis signed an executive order this week opening filming for older residents.
“We know that COVID-19 has been particularly difficult for those 65 and older,” Solis said on Tuesday. “Just look at our numbers. More than 99,000 residents aged 65 and over have been infected with COVID-19; 30,000 of residents aged 65 and over have been hospitalized because of COVID-19; and tragically, 9,802 residents in this age group died of COVID-19. That is among 14,000 people who died.
“It’s about equality,” she said. “Older adults were unfairly affected by the virus. They stayed at home for months, isolated, which, as you know, is a problem in itself. But the COVID-19 vaccine is here. Hope is here. “
Solis admitted that “there is not enough vaccine for everyone over 65”, but indicated that he hopes that the Biden administration will make more doses available. “We’ll leave it at that,” she said.