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The California state department of health reported a record number of new cases of coronavirus on Tuesday. The new daily count of 5,019 was a big jump from the previous record of 4,230, which was recorded on Monday. Hospitalizations, a confirmation that these are new infections versus the result of increased testing, also rose to a record 3,868 in total.
Hospitalization totals broke records both on Saturday and Sunday, with 3,702 COVID-19 patients reported in hospital beds. The peak before the weekend came almost two months earlier, on April 29. That was 3,497 new hospitalizations.
More than Term
California was one of seven states to report the highest number of hospitalizations since the pandemic began Tuesday, according to the Washington Post. The others included Texas, Arizona, Arkansas, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee.
Inpatient numbers are increasing more rapidly in Southern California. But some counties in the Central Valley and Bay Area also encountered a handful of cases of their highest total number of COVID-19 hospitalizations.
Overall, after an increase in cases is reported, experts look at whether there’s an increase in hospitalizations to confirm an outbreak, rather than just an increase in cases due to an increase in testing. The weekly number of tests for Los Angeles County stands at 87,000. That’s an eight-week low, down from the 117,000 high five weeks ago.
The Los Angeles County Health Department, the state’s largest, announced on Tuesday the fourth instance in a week that the region had seen more than 2,000 new cases of COVID-19. That is a daily mark that is not seen even at the height of the spread of the virus. The 24-hour total reported on Tuesday was 2,364.
Even more worrying was the increase in hospitalizations and the rate of spread.
From the Los Angeles Department of Health press release:
Public health continues to assess key recovery indicators to understand how COVID-19 is affecting communities and the ability to treat people who can become seriously ill. Public health is seeing small increases in hospitalizations and in the 7-day average of the daily positivity rate. There are 1,515 people who are currently hospitalized, 27% of these people are in the ICU and 18% are on ventilators. Although this number is significantly less than the peaks of more than 1,900 people hospitalized daily by COVID-19, this is higher than between 1,350 and 1,450 daily hospitalizations observed in recent weeks. And while the cumulative positivity rate remains at 8%, the 7-day average of the daily positivity rate has risen to 8.8%.
A day earlier, the department had set the 7-day positivity rate at 8.4 percent.
See Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti announce a new COVID-19 test initiative on Tuesday:
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