32 New COVID-19 Cases Reported in Pasadena

Pasadena saw 32 new cases of COVID-19 on Thursday, but no new deaths from the virus, officials said.

The new cases brought the total number of infections detected in the city to 2,178, according to city data. One-hundred and eleven people have died from COVID-19, in all.

Thursday’s county more than doubled those seen in recent days.

“We haven’t had this much of an increase since last Sunday,” city spokeswoman Lisa Derderian said.

There were 13 cases reported on Wednesday, 6 on Tuesday and 15 on Friday. But Derderian said it was possible the larger number was partially due to the state’s electronic lab reporting system catching up on a backlog.

The system had been undercounting new COVID-19 infections for several weeks, but state officials said the problem was fixed earlier this week. But the backlog of data created by the problem continues to populate databases.

Huntington Hospital was treating 36 COVID-19 patients on Thursday, hospital data showed. Twenty-six tests were pending.

Countywide, the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health announced 1,999 new detected infections and 64 new fatalities on Thursday. The figure included about 300 backlogged cases from prior days, officials said.

L.A. County has seen 216,139 total infections and 5,171 deaths since the onset of the pandemic, county health officials said in a written statement.

Officials reported 1,481 patients hospitalized with COVID-19 in the county on Thursday. With 32% of them in intensive care units.

With more than 2 million tests administered in the county, the positivity rate remained at 10%, where it has been for weeks.

County health officials said there were 891 active outbreak infections as of Thursday, “including outbreaks at UPS, Trojan Battery and SoFi Stadium,” the county statement said. “These three locations each have between 60 and 90 confirmed positive cases among employees.”

Another 550 outbreak investigations have already been completed in the county, authorities said.

Nearly 32,000 investigation have been conducted into reports of health order violations, the L.A. County Department of Public Health statement said. “Since March, Public Health investigated more than 20,000 restaurants, more than 4,700 grocery stores, and more than 3,600 other businesses.”

Businesses will play an important role in bringing the pandemic into check, L.A. County Director of Public Health Barbara Ferrer said.

“The only way for us to continue our recovery journey is to see lower rates of community transmission,” she said. “Our actions as individuals, business owners and business operators to take the necessary steps that protect each other, workers and customers require adherence to infection control and distancing directives. Businesses need to immediately alert us when there is an outbreak. This is what is needed to get our children back to their schools and to get more of our community members back to work.”

State health officials reported 7,085 new detected infections and 160 new deaths, bringing California’s totals to 593,141 cases of COVID-19 and 10,808fatalities.

As of Thursday, Los Angeles County accounted for 36% of California’s total COVID-19 infections and 48% of the state’s coronavirus deaths.