The number of daily new Covid-19 cases in Los Angeles County has been declining for two weeks. From the highest level of 21,411 on December 16, new cases were established between 13,000 and 15,000. While the death penalty remained high, there was some hope that in some cases a plateau i.e. virus transmission was slowed down. Friday’s data could shatter that hope.
The LA County Department of Public Health reported 20,414 new infections on Friday. It was a huge jump, with more than 5,000 cases above Thursday’s daily count of 15,129.
Friday’s spike may be related to last week’s spectrum internet outage. County health officials noted that some of the recent increases in deaths were “due to backlogs associated with spectrum outages and delays in holiday reporting.” Officials indicated in their Friday statement that the outage is again affecting the data. But only a large number of deaths were blamed for the outage, not in the new case count.
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This could also be the first jump of a terrible Christmas bounce after many Angelinos gathered and traveled for the holidays. If that’s the case and this is just the beginning, LA is for a terrific January. Another frightening possibility is that a new contagious infection of the virus found in San Diego on Wednesday is loose in Los Angeles. The number of the next few days will tell the story.
Meanwhile, the number of deaths related to the new daily virus remains high in the sky. On Friday, LA County reported that 200 people had died in the outbreak. If there is a 15% backlog, the remaining deaths are the same as the number of new deaths from all causes, which the county experiences on a typical day.
Kovid-19 then lost its life in three consecutive record days. The death toll rose to another 500 on Thursday, although some were again due to internet outages and backlog reporting over the weekend.
With 7,613 patients affected in LA facilities on Friday, the county set a new record for epidemiological hospital admissions. That’s 200 patients more than Thursday. More than half of the patients hospitalized in the area were Kovid-19, according to Barbara Ferrer, LA County’s director of public health. He said two-thirds of those in need of ICU care are infected.
