L.A. County Surpasses 10,000 Deaths Due to COVID-19

Exhausted health workers (Photo – Huntington Hospital)

The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health surpassed the tragic milestone of 10,000 confirmed COVID-19 deaths on December 30, 2020.

By News Desk

To date, Public Health identified 756,116 positive cases of COVID-19 across all areas of L.A. County and a total of 10,056 deaths.

On Wednesday, Dec. 30, County’s Public Health Department confirmed 274 new deaths and 10,392 new cases of COVID-19. Today’s number of deaths reflects a significant number of deaths from the backlog associated with the Spectrum outage and holiday reporting delays.

Of the 274 new deaths reported today:

• 95 people were over the age of 80 years old.
• 99 people were between the ages of 65 and 79 years old.
• 44 people were between the ages of 50 and 64 years old.
• 11 people were between the ages of 30 and 49 years old.
• One person was between the ages of 18 and 29 years old.
• Twenty-two deaths were reported by the City of Long Beach.
• Two deaths reported by the City of Pasadena.

Two months ago, L.A. County experienced around 1,200 cases a day. This past week, there are an average of 13,000 new cases each day, representing a tenfold increase in daily cases in just two months. The number of new cases reported this week are expected to be lower due mostly to testing centers being closed on Christmas and Christmas Eve. Cases are expected to increase based on holiday travels.

Highest number of COVID-19 hospitalizations

Public Health reports the highest number of COVID-19 hospitalizations ever reported since the pandemic began. There are 7,415 people with COVID-19 currently hospitalized and 20% of these people are in the ICU. This is an increase of more than 500 people reported in the last two days.

The gaps in hospitalization rates by race and ethnicity are widening. Latino/Latinx residents have a hospitalization rate of 80 hospitalizations per 100,000 people, a 627% increase since early November, and 3 times the rate of White residents. The number of African American/Black residents in hospitals is also increasing – to 57 hospitalizations per 100,000 people, a 714% increase since early November, and more than double that of White and Asian resident who currently have a rate of 26 hospitalizations per 100,000 people.

Vaccine

Efforts to safely and effectively deliver COVID-19 vaccines are underway per the CDC guidance and the State health department reviews and recommendations. The County is implementing a system that includes relying on private and public healthcare partners and establishing sites where frontline healthcare workers identified in Phase 1a can be vaccinated.

A total of 78,022 frontline healthcare workers at acute care hospitals have received their first doses. About 57% of the Pfizer allocation, (not including the doses received this week), has been used. With the Moderna vaccine, which arrived on December 21, a total of 1,398 EMTs and paramedics were already vaccinated, and by the end of the weekend, 3,189 doses had been administered to staff and residents at skilled nursing facilities.

Barbara Ferrer, Director of Public Health, said:

Unfortunately, given the amount of travel and holiday intermingling that may be happening over this winter holiday, we all need to be prepared for another surge that will start with even higher case numbers in January.

I want to again urge everyone recently returning or coming to Los Angeles County from outside the greater Southern California region – whether you just went to visit family in another state or took a trip north of here – to quarantine at home for a minimum of 10 days. This is required for everyone who traveled for leisure or recreation.

The County saw a high mortality rate among people living in areas with the highest levels of poverty, with three times the death rate compared to people living in the lowest levels of poverty.