L.A. County Receiving ‘Targeted Engagement’ from State to Help with COVID-19 Cases

Dr. Ghaly speaking on Monday during the State’s COVID-19 update. – Courtesy screenshot

Governor Gavin Newsom delivered an update on the state’s response to COVID-19 on Monday during which he indicated that the state is concerned with L.A. County’s progress.

Newsom said that there are currently 13 counties “where we have targeted engagement” because they need additional help controlling the spread of the virus as they reopen their economies. These counties include: Freson, Imperial, Kern, Kings, Los Angeles, San Joaquin and Tulare.

California Health & Human Services Agency Secretary Dr. Mark Ghaly said the state is concerned by the data in these counties as they had three consecutive days of concerning numbers in one or more particular areas. The state might help these counties with staff, ventilators, or moving patients to other counties to bring numbers to acceptable levels.

If this targeted engagement fails to mitigate the spread of the virus the state will work with the county to reinstitute measures “to ensure we get things under control.” The state is calling this Step 3 on its monitoring process.

The state has set a threshold of 25 new daily cases per 100,000 people but the figures for L.A. County show 162.5 cases per 100,000 over the last 14 days. The county reported an additional 19 deaths and 1,071 new COVID-19 cases on Monday.

The news comes after L.A. County Department of Public Health reported the largest single-day number of new cases (1,857) during the pandemic on Thursday. However, health official said approximately 600 of those cases were from backlogs in reporting of test results.

While the county will continue to reopen businesses, the state will have frequent discussion with county leaders and monitor the data.

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