Health Officials Warn of Dire Consequences If Spread of COVID-19 Is Not Curbed in L.A. County

As the novel coronavirus continues to spread through Los Angeles County at an accelerating rate, county health officials warned that without significant change in the course of the pandemic in Southern California, hospitals will soon be at risk of becoming overwhelmed with seriously ill people.

The stark message was similar to that delivered by health care officials in the county for well over a week, as positivity rates and hospitalization rates have continued to climb.

Over the past seven days, the positivity rate has grown to 10.4%, “a rate that Los Angeles County hasn’t seen since late-April, the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health said in a written statement. That means one out of every 10 people tested for the virus received a positive result.

“We need our residents to repeat what we did just weeks ago if we are going to flatten the curve again,” L.A. County Director of Public Health Barbara Ferrer said.

“If we can’t get the infection numbers back under control by the end of July, we will see thousands more people that require hospitalizations and that could easily overwhelm our healthcare system,” she said.

County officials announced 2,496 new COVID-19 cases and 65 new deaths on Wednesday, bringing total cases recorded in the county to 123,004 and total reported deaths to 3,642.

“There are more than 2,000 people currently hospitalized,” the county health department statement said. “Twenty-six percent of these people are confirmed cases in the ICU and 17% are confirmed cases on ventilators.”

This is substantially higher than the 1,350 to 1,450 daily hospitalizations seen four weeks ago.

Just four weeks ago, hospitals saw an average of 1,350 to 1,450 COVID-19 patients each day, officials said.

More than 1.229,000 COVID-19 tests have been administered in the county since the start of the pandemic, officials said. Nine percent of all those tested were positive for the novel coronavirus.

Pasadena saw 24 new detected COVID-19 infections Wednesday and no new deaths, according to city spokeswoman Lisa Derderian.

The city’s total stood at 1,439 known infections and 97 deaths.

Huntington Hospital was treating 64 COVID-19 patients on Wednesday, according to hospital data.

Gov. Gavin Newsom announced 11,694 new COVID-19 cases in the state on Wednesday, but said the number was inflated due to a backlog of test results from L.A. County. Without the backlog, new cases would have been below 10,000, he said.

Over the past week, new COVID-19 cases detected in California have averaged 8,116 daily, Newsom said.

State officials also announced 114 news deaths in California. Total infections in the state now stand at 289,468, with 6,562 people who have succumbed to the virus.