COVID-19 continues to spread throughout Los Angeles County — with the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health reporting 6,245 new confirmed cases of the virus on Thursday, May 26.
Last week, DPH reported that community transmission — which has been steadily rising over the past several weeks — reached the ‘medium’ tier, as defined by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The CDC’s guidelines dictate that if a region’s case rate increases past 200 per 100,000 people — their community transmission designation escalates from low to medium. Though entering medium transition doesn’t require any new mandates, it can be an early indicator that strain on the health care system could be looming, according to the CDC’s website.
“The trend that we saw last week has continued with a substantial increase in cases,” DPH director Barbara Ferrer said during her weekly COVID-19 brief. “As a reminder, this number is an undercount since it doesn’t include positive test results from over-the-counter tests.”
The county’s daily case rate remains high, Ferrer said, increasing to a new high of 41 cases per 100,000 residents. Test positivity is also up: Now resting at 4.1% — about 2.5 times higher than the rate reported a month ago.
Hospitalizations also increased — though not to the same degree that other indicators have. As of May 26, about 429 people were hospitalized with COVID-19 throughout the county, up from 410 the day prior.
Deaths have remained stable, Ferrer said, with about seven deaths reported per day throughout the last week. Ferrer continued to urge the public to adhere to common sense mitigation measures — such as masking in high-risk settings, testing often, and getting vaccinated — as cases continue to climb countywide, indicating that community transmission could be trending towards a ‘high’ transmission designation in the coming months.
As of Thursday, the county’s community transition rate was 280 new cases per 100,000 people — up from 246 the week prior. The county’s designation will be changed to high if either 10% of patients in hospitals are COVID-19 positive, or the rate of new COVID-19 hospitalizations increases to 10% or above per 100,000 people, Ferrer said.
As it stands, 2.3% of those hospitalized in LA County are COVID-19 positive, and there are about 4.5 new COVID-19 related hospitalizations per 100,000 people a week, DPH reported. The latter of those two indicators has doubled since last month, Ferrer said.
All eight of the county’s early alert signals are now considered to be of medium concern, Ferrer added, with two reaching high concern.
One of those metrics monitors COVID-19 outbreaks in skilled nursing facilities. In the last seven days, there have been 21 reported outbreaks of COVID-19 at retirement homes, Ferrer said.
“Unless we interrupt this increase in transmission, it will — as it always has — have an impact on the health care system,” Ferrer said, noting that even moderate increases in COVID-positive patients put a strain on hospitals because they require higher intensity resources.
Omicron subvariant BA.2. continues to be the dominant COVID-19 strain in the county, Ferrer said — although the even more transmissible BA.2.12.1 sublineage of omicron accounted for about 36% of tested cases in the county.
As of the week ending May 20, that sublineage has become the dominant strain nationwide — accounting for 58% of sequenced cases, Ferrer said.
Ferrer urged residents across the countywide to take precautionary measures as they prepare for Memorial Day celebrations — and as end-of-the-school year events continue to take place.
“We have this opportunity to slow transmission down,” Ferrer said, noting the importance of frequent testing, vaccinations, and masking when necessary. “We have the tools — I think we need to do a better job using them if we’re going to avoid moving into that high transmission level.
As it stands, Ferrer said, the county doesn’t foresee any updates to standing health orders on masking mandates — unless community transmission reaches the high designation.