“We have to assume that COVID-19 is everywhere right now,” Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said at his Coronavirus briefing Wednesday.
It reported 3,266 new coronavirus cases in the region for a total of 164,870 cases. That means the 7-day average of new daily infections has more than doubled in the past month. A reason for the increase? A new demography. People under the age of 41 now account for the majority of new cases in the region.
Garcetti said there were 2,207 COVID-related hospitalizations as of Wednesday in Los Angeles County. That’s just 25 patients below the all-time high of 2,232, which was recorded on Monday. It marked the fourth consecutive day that hospitalizations were over 2,000.
Given the lower demand for ICU beds and fans among the healthiest youth, a change is expected in the need for ICU beds and fans. The capacity of those currently seems adequate.
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But earlier in the day, Dr. Christina Ghaly, Director of the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services warned, “The number of staffed ICU beds may be inadequate.”
The number of ICU beds with staff is “hovering between 130-160 beds on any given day,” Ghaly said. That is for a population of 10 million. Garcetti said there are currently 623 ICU patients with coronavirus. That’s a 51 percent increase in the past month.
Health officials reported there were 64 new deaths, the third highest total since the pandemic began. That brought the total number of COVID-related deaths in the region to 4,213. “Deaths are on a downward trajectory,” said Ferrer, but that number could rise rapidly due to the number of hospitalized patients.
Today’s statistics are a snapshot from a few weeks earlier, according to the mayor. “Some things opened too fast,” said Garcetti. Those actions that residents are taking now and in the last week will appear a little later. “We will know more in a few days how we have responded,” he said. County health officials were more accurate. “We did a lot more things about 10 days ago,” he said to L.A. County Director of Public Health Barbara Ferrer “and I really have to wait another week or two to see what the impact of those actions is for us to stop the spread again.”
When asked under what conditions the city would close again, the mayor said, “If we saw double-digit growth from one of those key indicators: positivity, hospitalizations, yes, of course,” the city would take action.
Asking a similar question on CNN Wednesday night, Ferrer replied: “Overwhelming our healthcare system or approaching to overwhelm our healthcare system. We have ample capacity in our hospitals yet. Obviously, we cannot continue to accelerate daily hospitalizations. and maintain capacity in hospitals, but right now we are not overwhelming our hospitals. ”
“Therefore, we believe that the steps people are taking today will hopefully lead us to a place where we will begin to slow the spread again,” said Ferrer.
But, the mayor warned, “We will always have our finger on the dimmer switch, and we are not afraid to use it.”
“We are seeing some signs of hope,” he said, noting that the transmission rate is now .94, “below that magic number of 1,” Garcetti said. That means that for each infected person, slightly less than another person is infected by them, statistically. “While there is good news, do not forget how fragile this moment is,” recalled the mayor.
Earlier in the day, the Los Angeles County Director of Public Health offered some grim news.
“COVID-19 appears to be on its way to claiming more lives in Los Angeles County than any disease other than coronary heart disease,” said the director. The flu, he said, is not as deadly as COVID-19. In the first six months of 2020, COVID-19 killed twice as many people in the region as it did during the 8-month flu season this year and last.
Governor Gavin Newsom reported a record 12,807 new cases of coronavirus in the state on Wednesday. He said this total was “the highest in the nation.” The previous record for California came on July 7, with 11,694 new cases.
California now has 413,576 confirmed cases of COVID-19. That exceeds 408,886 seen in New York State as of Wednesday.
Of course, California is the most populous state in the U.S., with roughly twice as many residents as New York State, so those totals should be taken in the context of the states’ total populations. But it is revealing given that New York was previously the epicenter of the virus in the nation and, at one point, in the world.
