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| Image courtesy of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
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Los Angeles County added another 1,502 COVID-19 infections Thursday and 31 more virus-related deaths, according to the Department of Public Health.
The new cases lifted the county’s overall total from throughout the pandemic to 3,665,365.
Health officials have stressed that the official number of cases is an undercount, due to the large number of people who rely on at-home tests without reporting the results to the county. Other people don’t test at all, despite being possibly infected, officials said.
The 31 new deaths gave the county a cumulative virus-related death toll of 35,079.
According to state figures, there were 918 COVID-positive patients in county hospitals as of Thursday, down from 958 Wednesday and continuing a downward trend from the past week. Of those patients, 92 were being treated in intensive care units, down from 104 a day earlier.
The seven-day average daily rate of people testing positive for the virus was 5.7% as of Thursday, also continuing a gradual decline.
Thanks to the declining hospitalization numbers, Los Angeles County moved out of the federal government’s “medium” COVID activity level and into the “low” category.
Masks are still required indoors at health-care and congregate-care facilities, for anyone exposed to the virus in the past 10 days, and at businesses where they are required by the owner. Otherwise, they are only strongly recommended at indoor settings.
