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Health Jan 27, 2023
| Photo by raferto1973/Envato Elements
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Los Angeles County reported another 19 COVID-19-related deaths Friday, along with more than 1,123 new cases.
The new fatalities gave the county an overall death toll of 35,230, according to the county Department of Public Health.
Friday’s total of new infections lifted the cumulative total from throughout the pandemic to 3,673,339. The daily case numbers released by the county are undercounts of actual virus activity, due to people who use at-home tests and don’t report the results, and others who don’t test at all.
The number of COVID-positive patients in county hospitals was 722 as of Friday, down from 729 on Thursday. Of those patients, 84 were being treated in intensive care units, down from 90 a day earlier.
“The use of therapeutics, reasonable precautions including masking and testing, and access to the bivalent booster have all helped to put LA County in a good place right now,” Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer said in a statement. “The county is blessed to have the health tools that make a difference and I applaud everyone for using these tools to dampen spread and reduce risk, especially for those most vulnerable. For those at elevated risk who have not been boosted since August, please don’t delay adding in the additional protection offered by the new bivalent booster.”
On Thursday, the third anniversary of the first confirmed COVID-19 infection in the county, Ferrer reported continued declines in overall virus statistics.
She told reporters the county over the past week averaged 960 new COVID infections per day, a dramatic drop from the beginning of the month, when 2,400 new cases were being reported.
COVID-related hospitalizations also continued to fall, with the county averaging 104 new admissions per day aver the past week, a roughly 50% drop from 211 per day in early January.
One number that remained elevated, however, are daily virus-related deaths. The county is averaging 19 deaths per day, according to Ferrer, who said the number has hovered around 20 per day for nearly a month.
She has stressed that older residents, particularly those 80 and over, remain vulnerable to severe illness and death from the virus. She urged people to continue exercising caution around vulnerable populations, including wearing masks.
With the county moving into the “low” virus-activity level, as defined by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, wearing masks indoors is now a matter of personal preference.
Masks are still required indoors at health-care and congregate-care facilities in the county, and for anyone exposed to the virus in the past 10 days, and at businesses where they are required by the owner. Ferrer said masks are highly recommended for high-risk individuals, and for people riding public transit.
