LA County Reports 29 More COVID-19 Deaths

Los Angeles County health officials reported 620 new cases of COVID-19 and 29 more deaths on Wednesday, bringing the county’s totals to 7,530 cases and 198 deaths.

The number includes Pasadena’s 80 cases. Pasadena has its own health department and as of 1 p.m. on Wednesday officials there numbers have not updated the numbers in that city, which means the county’s numbers could increase even more.

Typically county health officials don’t include Pasadena in the county numbers.

The death count marks the deadliest day since the crisis began.

The new deaths included 17 people over age 65, with 16 of those people having underlying health conditions. Seven of the deaths occurred in people between 18 and 40, and five of them had underlying health problems.

The mortality rate among coronavirus patients in the county continued to rise slowly, reaching 2.6 percent on Wednesday, Ferrer said. The figure means 2.6 percent of the people who have tested positive for the illness in the county have died.

Last week, the mortality rate was 1.8 percent.

The county’s coronavirus cases include 43 cases that occurred in jail settings — three inmates and 40 staff members — along with 10 cases in the state prison system — eight inmates and two staffers.

Two cases have been reported in a county juvenile facility, both involving staff members at the Barry Nidorf juvenile hall in Sylmar.

Twelve cases have been confirmed among the county’s homeless population, up from two on Tuesday. Four cases have been reported in homeless shelters, involving two residents and two staff members.

Ferrer said there are now 131 institutional settings — such as nursing homes, skilled nursing facilities, assisted living facilities, shelters, jails and prisons — that have had at least one case. Those institutions have had a total of 596 cases and 37 deaths, all among residents.

As of Tuesday, roughly 36,500 people have been tested for the virus in the county, although Ferrer noted that number is likely low, since multiple new testing sites have opened in recent days but figures have not yet been gathered from those new locations.

The county has set a goal of testing 10,000 people per day. With roughly 10 percent of those people ultimately testing positive, Ferrer has warned that the daily increases in case numbers will likely approach about 1,000.

New testing centers opened Wednesday at East Los Angeles College and at the Charles Drew University medical campus in Willowbrook. The county now has more than 20 testing centers across the region. Those centers and others operated by individual cities are restricted to people showing symptoms of COVID-19.

Ferrer noted that as of Wednesday, 324 health care workers have tested positive. More than half of them work in hospitals, but other cases have occurred at outpatient facilities and emergency medical services personnel.

Nurses have had the largest number of cases, but doctors, paramedics and emergency medical technicians have also tested positive. Two health care workers in the county have died from the virus.