COVID-19 Cases Continue to Decline in Pasadena Wednesday, But 5 Deaths Reported

While Pasadena continued to see the rate of new COVID-19 infections on Wednesday, the unprecedented numbers of cases seen in recent weeks resulted in six new fatalities added to the city’s death toll, officials said.

Two of the deaths occurred between Dec. 31 and Jan. 12, but were only just added to the city’s official records, according to city spokeswoman Lisa Derderian. Three of the new deaths were recent and involved people living in the community at large, as opposed to in care facilities.

“We’re still not confident to say we’re done with the Christmas/New Year’s cycle that we were seeing,” Derderian said.

“We are hoping this decreasing trend of cases will continue,” she said. 

Additionally, officials were hopeful that lower numbers of new cases this week will equate to fewer deaths in the weeks to come.

In total, the city has documented 9,461 infections and 197 fatalities.

Pasadena recorded an average of 91 new infections per day over the prior week, which was the lowest rate since Dec. 15, according to city documents.

Huntington Hospital reported treating 186 COVID-19 patients on Wednesday, with 41 of them, or 22%, being treated in intensive care units.

COVID-19 deaths continued to mount in Los Angeles County today, with more than 250 fatalities reported, but while new case numbers, positivity rates and hospitalization figures are trending downward, the public health director said it’s too early to proclaim the surge over.

The persistently high number of daily deaths in recent weeks is a result of the massive spike in hospitalizations the county experienced over the past month. Estimates released Wednesday by the Department of Health Services showed that since Nov. 3, about 23% of people hospitalized due to COVID-19 have died — up from 12% in September and October. The average hospital stay for patients has increased to more than nine days, up from less than seven in October.

Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer said the county’s seven-day average of daily deaths was 179 on Jan. 10, dropping to 174 on Jan. 12. But on Wednesday, she reported 262 deaths. With 27 more deaths reported by Long Beach and five by Pasadena, the countywide death toll from throughout the pandemic rose to 14,416.

But while deaths persist, the county has begun to see a drop in daily numbers of new cases, along with dips in overall hospitalizations and the testing positivity rate. Ferrer reported 6,492 new cases on Wednesday, the lowest total in weeks, although she said the number may be low due to reporting lags and lack of testing availability over the holiday weekend.

Ferrer said the county was averaging more than 15,000 new daily cases on Jan. 8, with the average dropping to about 10,000 a week later.

The seven-day average rate of people testing positive for the virus was 14% as of Wednesday, down from more than 20% at the end of December. The number of people hospitalized averaged more than 8,000 on Jan. 5, dropping to 7,383 on Jan. 15. As of Wednesday, there were 7,263 people hospitalized in the county, according to state figures, including 1,692 in intensive care.

“While it’s too soon to tell if we’re actually seeing a significant decline in the surge … we are very hopeful that the actions taken by many are starting to work,’” she said. “Unfortunately, even if cases are beginning to decline, these numbers are still really high and they’re going to continue to drive overcrowding in hospitals and high numbers of deaths.

“The reality for us is that COVID-19 is still rampant at our workplaces, in our neighborhoods and really across every corner of this county,” she said.

Ferrer also stressed that while hospitalization numbers have dropped, they still remain dangerously high.

“So the end is not yet in sight,” she said. “With high numbers of daily cases, hundreds more people will require hospitalizations every week.’”

 The 6,492 new cases reported Wednesday increased the cumulative countywide total from throughout the pandemic to 1,038,738.

State health officials announced 22,403 new COVID-19 infections and 694 additional fatalities on Wednesday, raising the statewide totals to 3,019,371 cases of the virus and 34,433 deaths.

It marked the second-deadliest day of the pandemic in the state, exceeded only on Jan. 8, when 708 additional fatalities were reported.

The state’s average positivity rate over the prior week stood at 9.7%, while the 14-day average was 11.3%.

As of Wednesday, L.A. County represented 34% of California COVID-19 infections and 42% of the state’s fatalities.