State crosses 50,000 deaths

Record 1,114 deaths from COVID-19 Wednesday, but more than 800 had been previously unreported in LA

Days after the country passed the half-million death mark, hundreds of COVID-19 fatalities that had gone unreported in Los Angeles County were finally recorded and put California’s nation-leading death toll over its own morbid milestone of 50,000.

In total, 50,990 Californians have died from COVID-19 since the onset of the pandemic, with a record 1,114 fatalities reported Wednesday, according to data compiled by this news organization. However, more than 800 of those were attributed to a backlog from between Dec. 3 to Feb. 3 in Los Angeles County, according to county health officials. Accounting for only new fatalities, California’s counties totaled 308 on Wednesday, over a hundred fewer than the previous week, lowering its average to about 318 per day over the past week (or about 433 per day, when accounting for Wednesday’s full total).

With 5,889 new cases reported, California is averaging approximately 5,720 per day over the past week, 51% fewer than two weeks ago and 87% below its peak last month.

Coronavirus cases and hospitalizations in California kept dropping Wednesday.

With 5,889 new cases reported, California is averaging approximately 5,720 per day over the past week, 51% fewer than two weeks ago and 87% below its peak last month. The state has recorded 10,000 or more cases in a day just twice over the past two weeks, after recording fewer than 10,000 only three times in the previous 85 days.

California’s hospitals are treating approximately one-quarter of the COVID-19 patients as they were at the height of the pandemic last month. With 6,185 active hospitalizations, as of Tuesday, according to the state, approximately 43% fewer Californians are hospitalized with COVID-19 than there were two weeks ago.

The previously unreported deaths in Los Angeles County only add to the disproportionate pain the nation’s most populous county has felt from the coronavirus pandemic. More than 20,000 have died from COVID-19 in LA County, a larger death toll than any other county in the nation and a per-capita rate on par with states ravaged most by the virus.

While 50,000 deaths is a large and tragic milestone for any state, the round number is blunted slightly by California’s enormous population. On a per-capita basis, 30 other states have lost a larger proportion of their populations to the coronavirus.

In California, only tiny Inyo County has recorded more fatalities per-capita than Los Angeles County.

Twenty-three counties appear on the list of percapita fatalities before any from the Bay Area, where Santa Clara County has reported the highest overall and per-capita death toll in the region. Even in Santa Clara County, about 30% fewer people have died per-capita than the statewide average — less than half the rate of LA County. In San Francisco, COVID-19 has claimed the lives of half the per-capita total of Santa Clara County — about one-third of the statewide average and less than a quarter of the rate in LA County.

Besides LA County, nine counties added doubledigit tallies to their death tolls Wednesday.

In the Bay Area, Alameda County reported a region-high 18 deaths, followed by seven in Santa Cruz County, four in Solano County and two in Contra Costa County.

Calaveras County, home to fewer than 50,000 people in the northern Sierra Nevadas, added 22 to its death toll on Wednesday — nearly half its total for the entire pandemic. Only San Bernardino County, home to some 2 million people, matched that total, with 22 new fatalities bringing its cumulative death toll to 2,673.

The remaining double-digit death tolls were largely elsewhere in Southern California and in the San Joaquin Valley: 19 in San Joaquin County, 15 in Ventura County, 12 in San Diego County, 12 in Riverside County, 11 in Fresno County and 10 in Sacramento County.