1 in 3 people in L.A. County might have virus
LOS ANGELES — One in three Los Angeles County residents have been infected with the coronavirus, new estimates by county scientists show, an astonishing sign of how rapidly the virus is spreading in the hard-hit region.
The estimate, based on scientific modeling, means officials believe more than 3 million of the county’s 10 million residents have been infected with the virus, including nearly 13,000 who have died.
That’s more than triple the cumulative number of coronavirus cases that have been confirmed by testing. Officials have long believed that testing captures only a certain percentage of those who are infected because many with the virus don’t show symptoms or suffer only mild symptoms.
The rising number of those infected has actually slowed the pace of coronavirus transmission, as the virus is increasingly coming into contact with people who have survived the infection and likely developed immunity.
“Unfortunately, we are still engaging in behaviors that facilitate spread of the virus, so it is still able to find plenty of susceptible people to infect,” said Dr. Roger Lewis, director of COVID-19 hospital demand modeling for the
Los Angeles County Department of Health Services.
About 75 percent of the county’s population will need to be immune to the virus through widespread vaccinations to dramatically slow its spread, Lewis estimated. Even if half of the county’s population were immune, “and yet we decide to just pretend that we don’t have to take precautions, we will still have a very, very devastating pandemic.”
Los Angeles County averaged more than 15,000 new coronavirus cases a day over the past week — one of the highest such rates seen so far in the pandemic.
Officials have been urging residents to take even more precautions to avoid getting sick.
When leaving home to access essential services, county Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer said, people should bring sanitizing wipes to disinfect anything they might touch that others also have touched. Health officials also suggested avoiding eating or drinking with anyone not in your household, washing or sanitizing your hands every hour if you’re around others, and taking a break from shopping.
They also issued a new recommendation: People who live with elderly residents or with residents who have an underlying medical condition and must go out of their households should wear a mask at home.
More than 1,600 people in Los Angeles County have died from COVID-19 in the last week — a toll Ferrer called “tragic, upsetting and, frankly, overwhelming.”
Across Southern California, hospitals are overcrowded to an extent not seen in modern history. In Ventura County on Tuesday, there were 1,002 hospitalized patients — 448 of them infected with the coronavirus. “I don’t know that we’ve ever had that many patients hospitalized at the same time in our county,” said Steve Carroll, Ventura County’s emergency medical services administrator.
In Orange County, COVID-19 is ravaging families. Dr. Clayton Chau, director of the county’s Health Care Agency, recounted the story of grandparents who were in the process of adopting their granddaughter, in the eighth grade, whose mother died of cancer a few years ago.
“They just died from COVID. Both of them,” Chau said at a Board of Supervisors meeting Tuesday, his voice breaking. “We need to do something fast in our community. It is not about just reopening our economy that is important. But it is about taking care of our vulnerable community. Our seniors are dying.”