[ad_1]
LOS ANGELES – Despite some of the nation’s highest coronavirus rates falling earlier this year, Los Angeles County is once again seeing an increase in new infections.
Public health officials reported a 165% increase in confirmed cases over the past week, with 839 new infections recorded on Thursday. Fully vaccinated residents make up only a small fraction, 0.06%, of these new infections, according to the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health.
“The data is increasingly showing that vaccines remain the most important tool we have to keep the transmission of Covid-19 and the incubation of variants low,” said Barbara Ferrer, director of the public health, in a press release. “The overall trends in Covid-19 are heading in the wrong direction for everyone, and are of particular concern given the proliferation of the Delta variant.”
California public health officials on Friday recorded 2,411 new infections with a seven-day average of 3.3 cases per 100,000 people. The state has administered more than 42 million doses of the vaccine to date.
State officials lifted Covid-19 restrictions on June 15, more than a year after the state’s first lockdown. Case averages remained low for the first few weeks after reopening, but have since risen steadily as vaccinations halt, residents lost their masks, businesses returned to full capacity, and summer travel resumed.
Now, the county’s average daily case rate is 3.5 cases per 100,000 people, doubling last week’s rate of 1.74 cases per 100,000 people. The highly transmissible delta variant, first identified in India, has been the most common strain of coronavirus in Los Angeles since early June, mirroring the pattern across the country.
“Almost without exception, all of the people hospitalized, the people who lost their lives, were hospitalized or lost their lives because they were not vaccinated – period,” Gov. Gavin Newsom said during a press briefing on Wednesday.
As of July 3, the variant accounted for nearly 52% of new cases of Covid-19 that had been genetically sequenced in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Two weeks earlier, on June 19, the variant accounted for just over 30% of new cases.
Latinos continue to account for the majority of infections in Los Angeles, with 636,379 cases to date compared to 48,269 for black residents, 57,046 for Asians and 132,198 for white residents.
In Los Angeles, about 4.6 million of the county’s 10 million have been vaccinated and “just under 4 million” remain unvaccinated, according to the Department of Public Health.
Studies have shown that Covid-19 vaccines are effective against several variants, including the delta variant. A recent report from Public Health England, where the variant accounts for over 90% of new cases, found that both doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine were 96% effective against hospitalization.
“This is the call to everyone who has not been vaccinated: get vaccinated,” Newsom said. “What other evidence do you need?
[ad_2]
Source link