Los Angeles Covid Hospitalizations Almost Double in Last 2 Weeks – Deadline

In the past two weeks, daily hospitalizations in Los Angeles County linked to Covid-19 have nearly doubled according to the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health. As of Monday, there were 1,437 people hospitalized with Covid-19; on Monday July 26 there were 745 people hospitalized with Covid-19. See the graph below for a general idea of ​​the increase over the past three months.

The majority of the increase was among those unvaccinated. Hospitalizations remain very low among vaccinated people. Between May 1 and July 17, 3,158 people were hospitalized in Los Angeles County; 92% of people hospitalized were not fully vaccinated. This percentage has been very low, as the spread of the Delta variant causes more breakthrough infections.

The county reported 2,919 new daily cases of Covid-19 on Monday. That’s a minor drop from Sunday’s total and a significant drop from the 4,283 new cases reported on Saturday and the 3,930 on Friday. But LA health officials have warned that Monday’s drop was likely due to reporting delays over the weekend.

County public health director Barbara Ferrer offered hope last Thursday, saying, “We are not seeing the exponential growth in the cases that we saw earlier.” She noted that although the number of daily cases is still high, they do not appear to be increasing at the same rapid rate.

A better indication of the spread of the infection, the 7-day test positivity rate, actually declined significantly last week, from 5.4% last week to 4.4% this week. Hospitalizations can increase further as it is a lagging indicator, often skipping weeks after the increase in the number of cases.

Another lagging indicator, the number of Covid-related deaths, is still low, with just six reported in the county on Monday. That figure may or may not increase in the coming days, as vaccination among the small number of people hospitalized may have an impact.

Ferrer attributed the stabilization in the number of daily cases to the LA County indoor mask mandate, which went into effect on July 18. “We appear to be different in terms of the rate of increase compared to other counties. We were the only riding at the end of July to have this mandate.

Ferrer, however, warned that the total number of daily cases in the county would likely continue to rise in the near term. Indeed, schools are restarting and more and more companies require proof of vaccination or frequent negative tests, so the number of tests processed is increasing rapidly. As the number of tests increases, more cases will likely be discovered, she said.

“We’re going to see more cases. Over the past two weeks, we’ve gone from about 40,000 to 45,000 tests per day to 60,000 to 65,000 tests.