However, hospitalization figures continued to decline and the current rate of people who tested positive for the virus in the county dropped to 2.5%, just above the state rate of 2.1%, according to the numbers published Thursday.
According to state data, there were 1,341 people hospitalized in the county on Thursday, with 429 people in intensive care.
But the county reported 2,253 new infections, the highest figure in a single day since Feb. 20, when 2,393 cases were reported. Health officials said they will closely monitor new cases and other indicators, hoping the bulge will not become a trend.
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The new cases, combined with 67 reported by Long Beach health officials and 13 by Pasadena, have raised the county-wide total since the pandemic began to 1,198,178.
The county also announced another 119 deaths from COVID-19, and Long Beach and Pasadena added one fatality. The new deaths raised the county’s total death toll to 21,780.
County public health director Barbara Ferrer noted Wednesday that daily figures for virus deaths have remained at three digits, even as other COVID metrics dropped. He said that as the number of hospitals continued to decline, he hoped that the death toll would also begin to decline.
Health officials issued another warning against leisure travel, in light of the upcoming spring break, and stressed that anyone traveling outside the area must still be quarantined for 10 days when they return to county. Los Angeles.
“We may be a few weeks away from reducing transmission to Los Angeles County to allow for additional reopening,” Ferrer said in a statement Thursday. “However, with an increase in the number of cases in other states and more variants of concern circulating, spring travel may lead to another rise that frankly would be almost impossible to tolerate. Travels increase the risk of obtaining and disseminating “To prevent this, adjust your travel and continue to do your part to curb the spread, so that our recovery journey is not left out.”
Ferrer said Wednesday that the county confirmed the first case of a COVID variant first discovered in Brazil and that the number of cases of a variant that originated in the UK has risen to 27, a jump of 50 % of the 18 cases known as last week. And a California variant is increasingly dominant, with county officials detecting the mutation in 31 of 55 specimens that have been tested specifically for its existence.
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Gov. Gavin Newsom, meanwhile, announced Wednesday that the first cases of a New York variant have been detected in Southern California, though he did not specify where. All variants are believed to be more easily transmitted from person to person, and federal authorities have expressed concern that the New York variant is more resistant to current vaccines.
The appearance of the variants, although not unexpected, keeps health officials on the sidelines, although COVID conditions continue to improve.
Los Angeles County is on its way out of the restrictive purple level of the state’s four-tier economic reopening roadmap in late March. If it moves towards the less restrictive red level, more businesses could be opened, including indoor dining halls, movie theaters and gyms, all with limited capacity.
Figures released Tuesday by the state put the county’s adjusted daily average rate of new COVID-19 infections at 7.2 per 100,000 residents. If that number drops to 7 per 100,000 population and stays at that level for two weeks, the county will be able to get out of the state’s restrictive purple level of the “Plan for a Safer Economy” and into the red level.
Meanwhile, the state on Thursday announced a major policy change, diverting 40% of all vaccine supplies to people in lower-income communities and hard hit by the pandemic. Along with this change, when the state reaches certain milestones in the number of vaccines in these communities, it will adjust the case rates required to allow counties to move more easily in the reopening plan.
Moving to the red level of the plan would also allow us to resume face-to-face instruction for students in grades 7-12. The county already meets the requirements for face-to-face classes from preschool to sixth grade.
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