Los Angeles County public health officials on Saturday reported 2,169 new coronavirus cases and a continued rise in hospitalizations, saying the increase comes at “a critical moment” in the county’s reopening.
The county also reported 23 coronavirus-related deaths, bringing its total to more than 95,500 cases and nearly 3,300 deaths.
This comes a little over a week after the county permitted the latest round of business sectors, including bars, nail salons and tattoo parlors, to reopen, and about a month after hundreds of thousands of people began taking to the streets for protests decrying the police killing of George Floyd and other Black Americans.
“Over the last few weeks, businesses and public spaces have reopened, and many more people have been out and around others,” Barbara Ferrer, the county health director, said Saturday in a statement. “With increased contact among non-household members, there are many more opportunities for transmission of COVID-19, particularly if public health directives are not followed, and the data is now showing concerning trends.”
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The seven-day average of daily new cases stood at 1,900, up from an average of 1,379 two weeks before.
There were 1,698 confirmed coronavirus patients in county hospitals, an increase from the 1,350 to 1,450 daily hospitalizations the county was seeing two weeks prior, officials said.
And the cumulative positivity rate, which had been holding at 8% since late May, rose to 9% Friday, with more than 1,037,000 people having been tested and receiving their results. Over the last two weeks, the seven-day average of the county’s daily positivity rate has increased from 5.8% to 8.6%, officials said.
“Our collective responsibility is to take immediate action, as individuals and businesses, to reverse the trends we are experiencing,” Ferrer said.
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That includes following health officer orders and directives aimed at slowing the virus’ spread, she said.
“If we can’t find it in us to follow these mandates, including wearing face coverings and distancing when around others, we jeopardize our ability to move forward on the recovery journey,” she said.
County health officials also said they’ve received reports of bogus mask exemption cards “that depict a government seal with threatening language.” The information is false, and everyone except children younger than 2 should wear a face covering any time they leave the house, they said.
The increases in L.A. County reflect a statewide trend. California has logged record-breaking numbers of daily new cases on several occasions this week, with 5,700 new infections confirmed on Friday alone.
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As of Thursday, California had seen a 32% increase in hospitalizations of patients with confirmed COVID-19, and a 19% jump in ICU patients with verified infections, over the previous 14 days.
And as of Friday, 5.7% of coronavirus test results in California over the preceding seven days had come back positive, a rate not seen since early May, a Times data analysis found. A week ago, the rate was 4.7%, a rate that had been largely stable for June until Sunday, when there was a dramatic shift in the numbers.
Health officials say the rising percentage of coronavirus test results confirming infection indicated that the virus is beginning to spread in communities as more counties ease stay-at-home orders.
It wasn’t immediately clear whether L.A. County planned to dial back on its reopening efforts if the increases persisted.
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On Friday, Gov. Gavin Newsom said he was recommending that Imperial County reinstitute stricter stay-at-home orders after it continued to report the highest per-capita case rate of any county in the state, as well as the highest test positivity rate.
The county Board of Supervisors took no immediate action to direct businesses to shut down, but local officials were meeting with a state delegation Saturday to decide how to proceed.
San Francisco has also decided to pause the relaxation of its stay-at-home orders amid a rise in new cases, Mayor London Breed announced Friday.
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L.A. County reports 2,100 new COVID-19 cases and a continued rise in hospitalizations - Los Angeles Times
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