Coronavirus Cases Drop Steadily at Huntington Hospital

City officials reported 20 new COVID-19 cases and no new deaths on Sunday. 

The additional cases bring the city’s total case count to 10,772, with 305 deaths.

Meanwhile, COVID-19 cases at Huntington Hospital continue to decline.

As of Sunday, 13 of 65 people admitted to the hospital for COVID-19 were being treated in the facility’s intensive care unit. 

The number of coronavirus patients in county hospitals dropped to 2,369, with 30% of those patients in intensive care units. 

Hospitalizations have been dropping steadily since peaking at more than 8,000 in early January.

Sunday’s numbers bring the county’s totals to 1,180,485 infections and 19,885 deaths since the pandemic began.

Gov. Gavin Newsom was scheduled to visit two mobile vaccination sites in Los Angeles on Sunday afternoon to highlight the state’s efforts to vaccinate hard-to-reach and disproportionately affected communities, as equity issues in the distribution of the shots continue to vex health officials.

Vaccination rates among eligible Black residents lag far behind other ethnic groups, according to data released Friday by the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health. 

Black residents represented just 5.2% of all people who had received at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine as of mid-February, while 33.5% were white, 23.1% Latino/a and 19.1% were of Asian descent.

Only 24% of Black residents 65 and older have received at least one dose of the vaccine, compared to 42.8% of white residents 65 and up.

Health officials have been warning of a difficult month ahead in terms of access to vaccines, with the already jammed appointment system expected to get even more crowded by March 1, when essential workers such as teachers, food service workers and law enforcement officials become eligible for shots. 

In mid-March, everyone 16 and over with a serious underlying health condition will become eligible.

On Saturday, county health officials reported that two additional cases of the COVID-19 variant B.1.1.7 first discovered in the United Kingdom have also been detected here, bringing the total to 14 so far in Los Angeles County.

The U.K. variant is known to spread more easily and quickly than other variants. In January, British scientists reported evidence that suggests it might be associated with an increased risk of death compared with other variants but said more studies were needed to confirm this finding.

“With the U.K. variant circulating in the county, we will likely see more variant cases identified in the county,” said county Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer. “We must remain diligent with our safety measures even though we see overall decreases in cases, hospitalizations and deaths. Let’s keep our guard up because we know letting our guard down will lead to more cases and, tragically, more deaths again.”

Pasadena Health Department officials have not detected either the U.K. or the South African COVID-19 mutation in Pasadena.