4 New COVID-19 Cases Detected in Pasadena Monday

New COVID-19 infections in Pasadena remained low Monday with four new cases of the virus detected, authorities said.

One additional death was reported, but the victim, a 93-year-old woman living in a long-term care facility, died on Dec. 31, according to city spokeswoman Lisa Derderian. The death was only just added to Pasadena Public Health Department records.

Two days this month — Sunday and March 7 — saw zero reported COVID-19 infections, according to city data.

Over the prior seven days, Pasadena public health officials detected 7.4 infections daily.

Huntington Hospital reported treating 20 COVID-19 patients on Monday, representing an increase of two over the day before. But patients in the intensive care unit declined from five to four.

The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health reported 516 new cases of COVID-19 and nine additional fatalities, though Monday’s relatively low numbers may reflect reporting delays over the weekend.

Monday’s numbers brought the county’s totals to 1,214,178 cases and 22,806 deaths since the pandemic began, according to the county health department.

The number of county residents hospitalized with the virus continued to decline, dropping from 750 Sunday to 713, with the number of those patients in intensive care declining from 191 to 181, according to state figures.

However, officials noted a rise in transmission rate based on hospitalization data, with a rate of .93 at the beginning of March, higher than the .87 recorded one week earlier.

“Because the uncertainty in the estimated transmission number R includes values both below and above 1, it is uncertain if the number of hospitalizations will continue to decrease, be stable, or start to increase,” the department said.

L.A. County Director of Public Health Barbara Ferrer also said Monday that the county was entering into a memorandum of understanding with the state and Blue Shield for the giant health insurance company to oversee COVID-19 vaccination efforts. She stressed that the county’s vaccination providers and overall distribution strategy would remain the same, but would now be coordinated with Blue Shield, allowing for more data dashboards among other improvements.

Ferrer added that public schools in the county would be permitted to align with the state’s updated guidelines that call for 3 feet of distance between student desks, not the 6 feet previously called for. Individual districts can choose to retain the 6-feet standard, though — something that Los Angeles Unified School District Superintendent Austin Beutner has opted for.

Officials stress that the 3-feet guidance applies only to schools, and only to student desks.

“It’s specifically in the classroom,” Dr. Paul Simon, chief science officer for the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, said last week.

It was not clear Monday whether the Pasadena Public Health Department would follow suit.

“So what I don’t want folks to do is say, ‘Well, gee, 3 feet is fine virtually anywhere.’ That’s definitely not the case. It was very specific in their guidelines, 3 feet in the classroom — elementary, middle and high school classrooms — but making sure everybody is wearing face masks all the time and that the classes are cohorting.”

Ferrer said county officials saw a slight decrease last week in transmission of the B.1.1.7 COVID-19 variant first detected in the United Kingdom. She said vaccination efforts are holding at skilled-nursing and assisted-living facilities, and she was confident that even if new variants of the virus began spreading faster, those facilities would not see outbreaks close to the level they saw last spring.

Officials at the California Department of Public Health announced 2,000 new infections and 427 deaths on Monday, raising the statewide tallies to 3,547,278 COVID-19 cases and 56,545 fatalities.

Over the prior week, the state’s average positivity rate was recorded at 1.7%, according to the CDPH.

As of Monday, L.A. County represented 34% of California’s COVID-19 infections and 40% of the state’s deaths.