The Los Angeles County Director of Public Health today dismissed work by residents and businesses to slow the spread of COVID-19, noting that the county now meets five of the six six-point benchmarks for coronavirus monitoring.
Barbara Ferrer expressed optimism about the positive trends in most coronavirus surveillance measures. She said the province only falls short in the rate of new cases, which stands at a 14-day daily average of 295 new cases per 100,000 inhabitants. The state benchmark is 100 or less.
But Ferrer said the province meets other benchmarks for drops in hospitalizations, the average seven-day average positivity rate – now at 6 percent – testing capacity and availability of beds and ventilators for intensive care units.
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That, on the same day that Governor Gavin Newsom added a number of additional counties to the state’s watch list because they did not comply with those measures. Until a province can meet all six state banks, it will remain on the state’s monitoring list, which prevents the reopening of schools and many businesses. As of Monday morning, 42 of the 58 counties in the state were on the list, though San Diego County is expected to be removed Tuesday.
Ferrer announced another 19 deaths on Monday from the virus, bringing the total to 5,273 since the start of the pandemic. They also reported 1,185 cases again, noting that the numbers of new cases and deaths are typically lower early in the week due to reduced testing and reporting over the weekend.
The total number of countywide cases since the pandemic began was 223,233 on Monday.
Despite ongoing reporting of new cases and deaths, Ferrer praised the work of residents to follow restrictions by wearing face masks and exercising social distance.
“I hope this data reminds us all of the power that our actions have in preventing serious illness and saving lives, and again I just want to say how grateful I am to everyone who does their part to to ensure that we reduce the spread of COVID-19, “Ferrer said.” We still have ways to go to reduce the transmission of the community enough to have confidence that the timing would be right to open our schools and to get more people back to work.
“We do not want community infections to return to our schools and create an increase in outbreaks which will then increase the amount of community transport we will see.”
