Los Angeles Health Authorities Reported 3,000 New Covid 19 Cases

Los Angeles County Health Authorities reported 3,045 new cases of COVID-19 and five additional deaths Sunday. Many officials noted that those numbers may reflect delays in weekend reporting.According to state figures, the number of coronavirus patients in county hospitals continued to spike, rising from 1,071 Saturday to 1,096. The number of those patients in intensive care rose from 231 to 236.

According to the Los Angeles County health authorities, the new figures bring the county’s cumulative totals to 1,303,343 cases and 24,685 fatalities since the pandemic began. The county has been experiencing sharp increases in daily case numbers, hospitalizations and test-positivity rates over the past several weeks, with the increases attributed to the highly infectious Delta variant of the coronavirus.

Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer said that over the past eight months, millions of people in the U.S., and around the world, have been safely vaccinated. The data overwhelmingly shows the vaccines to be effective at preventing serious illness that causes hospitalization, and death. To beat back transmission, however, we need to have higher levels of vaccination, particularly among our younger residents.

Ferrer said that the rise seen in recent weeks in the positivity rate and new case numbers were showing signs of slowing, offering some hope the surge may be leveling off. She said hospitalizations are expected to continue rising since that number traditionally increases following rises in overall case numbers. The positivity rate was 6.1% dropped 6.3% on Friday but still higher than the 5.17% rate reported Thursday.