LA County Reports High Number of Positive Cases: 18 New Deaths and 3,322 New Cases of Confirmed COVID-19 in Los Angeles County

The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health (Public Health) has confirmed 18 new deaths and 3,322 new cases of COVID-19. To date, Public Health has identified 133,549 positive cases of COVID-19 across all areas of LA County, and a total of 3,809 deaths.

Testing results are available for over 1,336,000 individuals with 9% of all people testing positive.

Currently, there are 2,093 people hospitalized, 26% of these people are confirmed cases in the ICU and 19% are confirmed cases on ventilators. This remains substantially higher than the 1,350 to 1,450 daily hospitalizations seen four weeks ago. Any modifications in the Health Officer Order are always in the name of preventing more cases, more serious illnesses, increased hospitalizations and more deaths.

“For many LA County residents this is a very difficult time as you mourn the loss of a loved one and we wish you healing and peace,” said Barbara Ferrer, PhD, MPH, MEd, Director of Public Health. “We have been battling this virus for several months and I know that ‘COVID fatigue’ is a very real thing. I want to encourage everyone to remain vigilant and continue to use all the tools we have to prevent further transmission of the virus. Closely following all protocols for physical distancing, wearing cloth face coverings and washing hands frequently are crucial at this moment for preventing more serious illness and death from COVID-19.”

Of the 16 people that passed away (excluding Long Beach and Pasadena), 14 people were over the age of 65 years old and two people who died were between the ages of 41 and 65 years old. Eleven people had underlying health conditions including 10 people over the age of 65 years old and one person between the ages of 41 to 65 years old. Two deaths were reported by the city of Long Beach.

Ninety-three percent of people who died had underlying health conditions. Of those who died, information about race and ethnicity is available for 3,543 people (99 percent of the cases reported by Public Health); 46% of deaths occurred among Latino/Latinx residents, 26% among White residents, 16% among Asian residents, 11% among African American/Black residents, less than 1% among Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander residents and 1% among residents identifying with other races. Upon further investigation, 15 cases and two deaths reported earlier were not LA County residents.

Because this virus is still easily transmitted among people in contact with each other, the best protection against COVID-19 continues to be to wash your hands frequently, avoid touching your eyes, nose, and mouth with unwashed hands, self-isolate if you are sick, practice physical distancing, and wear a clean face covering when in contact with others from outside your household. It’s important if someone thinks they could be positive for COVID-19 and are awaiting testing results, to stay at home and act as if they are positive. This means self-isolating for 10 days and 72 hours after symptoms and fever subside, or until they receive a negative result. If a person tests positive for COVID-19, they should plan on receiving a call from a contact tracer to discuss how to protect themselves and others, to find out where they may have been, and who they were in close contact with while infectious. People who have underlying health conditions remain at much greater risk for serious illness from COVID-19, so it will continue to be very important for the County’s vulnerable residents to stay at home as much as possible, to have groceries and medicine delivered, and to call their providers immediately if they have even mild symptoms.

The Reopening Protocols, COVID-19 Surveillance Interactive Dashboard, Roadmap to Recovery, Recovery Dashboard, and additional things you can do to protect yourself, your family and your community are on the Public Health website, www.publichealth.lacounty.gov.

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