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View Winners → Top Posts Sep 15, 2021
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Los Angeles County reported another 27 COVID-19 deaths, while hospitalizations due to the virus dropped again.
The 27 fatalities reported on Tuesday lifted the countywide death toll from the virus to 25,713. The county also reported 1,725 new cases, giving the county a cumulative total from throughout the pandemic of 1,435,163.
According to state figures, there were 1,214 COVID-positive patients hospitalized in the county, down from 1,224 on Monday. The hospitalization number has been trending downward, falling by roughly 260 over the past week and by about 470 over the past two weeks.
Of the hospitalized patients, 361 were in intensive care, according to the state, a drop from 368 on Monday.
County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer continued to stress the need for more people to get vaccinated to drive down infection rates.
“With the highly transmissible Delta variant accounting for all COVID- 19 strains recently sequenced in L.A. County and with a continued high level of spread over months now, it remains essential to mask up and get vaccinated if you are eligible,” Ferrer said in a statement. “While both vaccinated and unvaccinated people can get infected, being unvaccinated increase your chances four-fold of becoming infected, 10-fold of being hospitalized and more than 10-fold for dying. The vaccine continues doing its very important work of dramatically reducing illness and suffering from COVID among the people who are vaccinated.
RELATED: LA County COVID-19 hospitalizations fall for 13th day
“The struggle now is to get enough people vaccinated to break the cycle of high rates of transmission. We continue working with our partners to increase vaccinations, our most powerful tool for ending the pandemic.”
According to the most recent numbers, 75% of eligible county residents age 12 and over have received at least one dose of vaccine, and 66% are fully vaccinated. Among the county’s overall population of 10.3 million, 65% have received one dose and 57% are fully vaccinated. That population figure includes roughly 1.3 million people under age 12 who are ineligible for shots.
Black residents in the county continue to have the lowest vaccination rate, at 51% overall with at least one dose. Among Black residents age 12-15, just 35% have received at least one dose.
The average daily rate of people testing positive for the virus in the county was 1.4% as of Tuesday, down slightly from Monday.
Of the nearly 5.4 million fully vaccinated people in the county as of Sept. 7, 43,598 had subsequently tested positive for COVID-19, for a rate of 0.81%, she said. A total of 1,243 fully vaccinated people have been hospitalized, for a rate of 0.023% and 165 have died, for a rate of 0.0031%.
