As coronavirus cases increase, surge might be ‘leveling out’
The risk of catching the coronavirus in Los Angeles County remained “extraordinarily high” on Thursday, but there were signs of hope that the delta variant-fueled surge may be leveling off.
The urgent push to persuade people to get vaccinated and to wear masks in public was having a positive effect, public health officials said, even as woeful numbers continued to be reported.
There were 3,672 new cases
reported Thursday, a total not seen since early February, taking the total since the pandemic began to 1,315,313.
Another 19 people reportedly died. The county’s death toll climbed to 24,739, including in the past two days a child younger than 12 and two 20-year-olds, all with underlying conditions.
Since Wednesday, an additional 128 people were hospitalized with the virus, bringing the total to 1,370, with 297 in intensive care, according to the state dashboard.
“We have a long ways to go,” said L.A. County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer, noting that as more required testing of unvaccinated and vaccinated people are reported, “we’re going to see more cases.”
Officials expressed concern Thursday at the case rates of African American residents.
“We continue to be deeply alarmed to see the case incident in Black residents be so much higher than all other groups,” Ferrer said, adding that the next highest case rate was among White residents in the county.
Ferrer said all of the new sequenced cases identified in L.A. County are from the delta variant, the highly contagious mutant strain of the virus that is fueling surges around the world at a time when substantial portions of the population remain unvaccinated.
The more hopeful news: Ferrer said the county’s current rate of new cases is 21.1 per 100,000 residents, a drop from 24 per 100,000 last week. The average daily rate of people testing positive for the virus is 4.73%, down a percentage point from last week.
“Although today’s rate will likely change somewhat over the coming days as additional test results are reported, this does suggest to us that our rise in cases may be leveling out,” Ferrer said. “While we’re still experiencing a significantly high case rate, a little more than two weeks ago at the time of our recent health officer order requiring universal masking indoors, we also noted that our cases had doubled every 10 days. What we’re seeing now is a much smaller increase in our cases over a couple of weeks, which is what we’re hoping for 10 days after implementing an effective public health measure.”
Ferrer said that on Sunday, the county had seen a 22% week-over-week increase in new cases, while the increase in the rest of the state was 57%, a sign Los Angeles County — which implemented a mandatory indoor maskwearing mandate in midJuly — is now seeing slower transmission of the virus.
Ferrer said it was too early to say if the mask requirement is responsible for the county’s improvement, “but I know for sure it contributed.”
Vaccination efforts also are improving in the county, with more than 81,000 first doses administered in the week ending Sunday, the third week in a row the number has increased after a long period of declines.
Among county residents aged 12 and over, 6.22 million have received at least one dose and 5.45 million are fully vaccinated. Of the county’s 10.3million residents — including more than a million who aren’t eligible for the shots — 61% have received at least one dose of vaccine and 53% are fully vaccinated.
Black residents aged 12 and up continue to have the lowest rate of vaccinations, at 47%, followed by Latino residents at 56%, White residents at 67% and Asian Americans at 78%. Residents aged 12-15 have the lowest overall vaccination rate at 49%. Black residents aged 12-15 have a vaccination rate of just 26%.
As a result, Ferrer said, Black residents are experiencing the highest rate of new COVID-19 infections, at 426 per 100,000 residents during the two-week period that ended July 24. That was a 500% increase from the two-week period ending June 26.
Ferrer again highlighted the danger of the virus to unvaccinated residents, noting that from May 1 to July 17, people who haven’t been vaccinated were nearly four times more likely to be infected with COVID-19 than vaccinated residents. Of the 3,158 people who were hospitalized in the county during that time period, only 8% were fully vaccinated.
Thankfully, while cases have spiked by 550% over the past month, hospitalizations so far have not fully followed proportionally.
“Were not currently seeing that pattern replicate itself,” Ferrer said.
Still, it was the lagging indicators that public health officials continued to watch and worry over: The seven-day average number of deaths rose from three daily deaths to six daily over month the past.
“Given that just about every death is preventable, these losses are particularly tragic,” Ferrer said.