However, hospital admissions continued to decline and the current percentage of people testing positive for the virus in the county dropped to 2.5%, just above the statewide rate of 2.1%, according to figures released Thursday.
According to state figures, 1,341 people had been hospitalized on Thursday, with 429 people in intensive care.
But the province reported 2,253 new infections, the highest one-day number since February 20, when 2,393 cases were announced. Health officials said they will keep a close eye on the new case numbers and other indicators, hoping the bump doesn’t turn into a trend.
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The new cases, combined with 67 reported health officials in Long Beach and 13 by Pasadena, increased the cumulative total for the entire district since the start of the pandemic to 1,198,178.
The county also announced a further 119 COVID-19 deaths, with Long Beach and Pasadena each adding an additional fatality. The new deaths raised the county’s total death toll to 21,780.
County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer noted on Wednesday that the daily number of virus deaths has remained in the triple digits, even as other COVID statistics showed a downward trend. She said that with the number of hospitals continuing to decline, she hoped the number of fatalities would decrease as well.
Health officials again warned against leisure travel, in light of the upcoming spring break, stressing that anyone leaving the area will still need to be quarantined for 10 days when they return to Los Angeles County.
“We may be just weeks away from reducing the transfer in LA County so that additional reopenings are allowed,” Ferrer said in a statement Thursday. could lead to a new wave that is frankly almost impossible to tolerate. Travel increases the risk of getting and spreading COVID-19. To avoid this, postpone your trip and continue to do your part to slow the spread so that our recovery journey is not sidelined. ”
Ferrer said on Wednesday that the province has confirmed the first case of a COVID variant first discovered in Brazil, and the number of cases of a variant originating in the UK has risen to 27, a jump from 50 % from the 18 cases known as from last week. And a California variant is increasingly dominant, with county officials detecting the mutation in 31 of the 55 specimens specifically tested for it.
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Gavin Newsom, meanwhile, announced on Wednesday that the first cases of a New York variant have been discovered in Southern California, although he did not specify where. All of the variants are believed to be more easily passable from person to person, and federal authorities have expressed concern that the variant in New York City may be more resistant to current vaccines.
The emergence of the variants, while not unexpected, is keeping health officials on their toes even as COVID conditions continue to improve.
Los Angeles County is on track to leave the restrictive purple layer of the state’s four-tier economic reopening roadmap in late March. As it progresses to the less restrictive red tier, more businesses can open, including indoor dining, movie theaters, and fitness centers, all with limited capacity.
According to figures released by the state on Tuesday, the adjusted average daily number of new COVID-19 infections is 7.2 per 100,000 residents. If that number falls to 7 per 100,000 residents and stays at that level for two weeks, the county can move out of the restrictive purple tier of the State’s “Blueprint for a Safer Economy” to the red tier.
Meanwhile, the state announced a major policy change on Thursday, diverting 40% of all vaccine supplies to people in low-income communities badly affected by the pandemic. Coupled with that shift, when the state reaches certain milestones in vaccination numbers in those communities, it will adjust the required numbers of cases so that the counties can more easily make progress on the reopening blueprint.
Moving to the red level of the blueprint could also resume personal instruction for students in grades 7-12. The county already meets the requirements for in-person tuition for kindergarten through sixth grade.
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