Six months after California lost its first victim to COVID-19, the state recorded more than 10,000 deaths – with nearly half in Los Angeles County.
Officials registered 53 additional deaths in the province – bringing the total to 4,918 – and 3,116 new infections Friday, according to the Department of Public Health. The total LA County count now stands at more than 204,000. The high number of new cases is due in part to a backlog of test results received from one lab.
Officials warn that ongoing technical problems with the state’s electronic system used to collect test results mean the total number of positive test cases in the province is likely to be much higher, although it is not clear to what extent.
“These metrics as a whole are what we used to guide our decision-making,” County Health Officer Dr. Muntu Davis said during a newsletter. “At present, I have no clear expectations or understanding of what the state finds in terms of its investigation.”
Such data are integral to projections related to transmission rates, indicating how many people can contract the virus from one infected person, and hospital supply and demand.
The technical issues related to the state’s electronic system for collecting test results affected the state’s data from July 25 to August 4.
California Director of Health and Human Services Dr. Mark Ghaly said Friday that a server outage prevented 250,000 to 300,000 records from entering the state’s reporting system. It is unclear how many of these records are COVID-related, because the system includes lab results for multiple diseases.
Ghaly said he did not think the issue would reverse the overall trend in cases previously reported by the state. But it is unclear how many counties were affected as to whether the cases were widespread in the state or limited to a few areas.
State and county officials have reported a recent plateau in hospitalizations. As of Thursday, 1,741 LA County residents with confirmed cases of the virus were admitted to the hospital; 29% were in intensive care. The number of hospitals in the hospital was roughly 2,200 by mid-July.
The plateau follows new orders for shutdown of the state and comes to back-to-back records for dead with one day.
Younger people are now responsible for the majority of cases in the province, with those between 30 and 49 years old for the highest number of infections under each age group and 25% of patients in the hospital. And those between 18 and 29 now earn more than twice the share of all hospitalizations than they did in April.
“These patients now correspond to the hospital level of people aged 80 or older,” the province said. “By comparison, hospitalizations of those 80 years or older have fallen by half since the height in April.”
Officials have continued to stress the need for people to stay socially distant and avoid meetings and have instructed companies to keep provincial safety records. The public health department has received more than 20,100 complaints about businesses since March and has closed 27 restaurants and 27 other businesses, including seven gyms, for violating orders.
