One in three Los Angeles County residents is estimated to be infected with the coronavirus by land scientists, an astonishing sign of how quickly the virus is spreading in the hard-hit region.
The estimate, based on scientific modeling, means officials estimate that more than 3 million of LA County’s 10 million residents are infected with the coronavirus, including nearly 13,000 who have died.
This is more than triple the cumulative number of cases of coronavirus confirmed by tests. Officials have long believed that testing only affects a certain percentage of those who are infected, because many with the virus do not show symptoms or have only mild symptoms.
The increasing number of infected people has slowed the rate of coronavirus transmission, as the virus is increasingly coming into contact with people who have survived the infection and are likely to have developed immunity.
“Unfortunately, we are still engaging in behaviors that facilitate the spread of the virus, so it is still able to find many susceptible people to become infected,” said Dr. Roger Lewis, director of COVID-19 hospital demand modeling for the LA County Department said. of Health Services.
About 75% of LA County’s population will need to be immune to the virus through widespread vaccinations to dramatically slow its spread, Lewis estimated. Even if half of LA County’s population was immune, “and yet we decide to just pretend we don’t have to take precautions, we’ll still have a very, very devastating pandemic.”
LA County has averaged more than 15,000 new cases of coronavirus per day in the past week – one of the highest in the pandemic so far.
To surpass 15,000 new cases of coronavirus a day, taking the province to a level that officials have warned could lead to overwhelming LA County hospitals in a worse catastrophe, draining resources and stretching staff to a point that health care officials possibly have to choose. which patients receive attention from nurses and respiratory therapists and access to ventilators and which patients receive palliative care.
Officials urged residents to take even more precautions to get sick.
Barbara Ferrer, director of public health in LA County, said people should bring disinfectant wipes to disinfect their cell phones, car keys, workstations and door handles – anything they can touch that others have also touched. Health officials have also suggested that you do not eat or drink with anyone in your household, wash your hands or disinfect every hour when you are near others, and take a break to shop.
They also issued a new recommendation: people living with elderly residents or with residents who have an underlying medical condition and need to leave their households should wear a mask at home.
More than 1,600 deaths in a week
More than 1,600 people in Los Angeles County have died from COVID-19 in the past week – a toll Ferrer called “tragic, disturbing and frankly, overwhelming” and a sign of extraordinary danger, as the potential for more contagious variant of the virus began to spread in California.
“Follow virus precautions” as if your life or the life of a loved one depends on it, “she said during an information session on Wednesday. “Because it just may.”
During the week-long period ending Wednesday, an average of 232 people died daily from COVID-19, according to data compiled by The Times. In comparison, the confirmed death toll in the Northridge earthquake – which hit the South almost exactly 27 years ago – was 57.
In just the past seven days, the province has set and then set its daily record for new coronavirus-related deaths.
The past week has been an acceleration, but not a deviation. A total of 2,904 LA County residents have died from COVID-19 in the past 14 days – a number that represents nearly a quarter of the province’s cumulative death toll, which is just 13,000.
“Your infection can lead to dozens of other infections within a few days, and someone along the way of transmission could very well die from COVID-19,” Ferrer said. “These are just not normal times, and therefore we can not go out and continue to act as if nothing is going on.”
Ferrer did not rule out issuing additional restrictions.
“We are currently considering all options,” she said on Wednesday without elaborating on what new orders might look like.
“We are very, very concerned about the sustained number of cases here,” Ferrer said, “and I feel that there is not a big window here to get the boom under control.”
COVID-19 hospitalizations are coming down, but at a high rate
In LA County, new COVID-19 hospitalizations have flattened out for the time being, with even hints of a slight decline. But hospitals are still too many and hospitalizations extraordinarily high; the ICU at Gardena Memorial Hospital, for example, has 320% occupancy.
Over the past few weeks, an average of 700 to 850 new patients a day with coronavirus infections have been admitted to LA County hospitals – a number that have pushed hospitals to prepare for the need for rationing.
“It is three times higher than what was seen earlier in the pandemic,” said Dr. Christina Ghaly, the director of health services in LA, said.
While the stable numbers are welcome news, they likely represent a stabilization in the transfer that took place after Thanksgiving – while LA County and California officials issued stay-at-home orders – but before Christmas, Ghaly said.
It will take more time to see the impact of Christmas and New Year’s gatherings on hospitalizations, ” Ghaly said: ‘At this stage we do not have the information available to determine whether the boom took place or not, and if so, how steep will increase the numbers. ”
If there had been a huge increase in virus transmission during the holidays, it would have been absolutely devastating for our hospitals, she said. By simply maintaining current levels of COVID-19 hospitalizations, it jeopardizes the care of future COVID-19 patients and others who do not experience COVID diseases and emergencies, such as strokes and heart attacks.
“To meaningfully relieve healthcare providers, we need a rapid and significant decline in hospitalizations for a minimum period of one to two months,” Ghaly said. ‘Do not let the current number of daily hospitalizations feel normal to you just because they are flat. … It’s unprecedented in the course of this Los Angeles County pandemic, and everyone should continue to be concerned about what might happen if hospitalizations start to increase again. ”
Although the transmission was relatively controlled over Christmas and New Year, with – on average – every infected person transmitting the virus to one other person, Ghaly said: ‘we would still expect there to be a very high demand for hospital services with an ongoing limited supply of hospital beds – as well as especially ICU beds – during the next four weeks. ”
Hospital corpses overloaded
Across Southern California, hospitals are overcrowded to an extent not seen in modern history. In Ventura District, a total of 1,002 patients were admitted to hospital – 448 of them were infected with the coronavirus. “I do not know that so many patients in our country have been admitted to the hospital at the same time,” said Steve Carroll, administrative emergency services administrator in Ventura County.
“Unfortunately, it doesn’t look any better,” Carroll told the Ventura Board of Supervisors. “All hospitals are overloaded.”
The slight decline in COVID-19 hospitalizations observed by government officials has not yet occurred in Ventura County, where it is at a peak, Drs. Robert Levin, health officer in Ventura County, said. ‘This week is critical. And I think we’ll know that in the next five days or so by looking at our census of the hospital we’re heading to. ”
Some hospitals’ morgues are full, and hospitals are seeing delays of up to three days to get the dead out of their cribs and into a morgue. In some cases, a mortuary can only handle four embalms per day and quickly get a backup if more than four corpses are received per day. One mortuary said it normally handles seven to eight families a week; it’s about 50 now, Carroll said.
Ventura County recorded a cumulative 388 COVID-19 deaths; nearly half of them, 189, have been reported since mid-December.
‘Many of us watched what happened in New York and Italy and saw horrific scenes. And we’re getting closer, ”said Ventura County Supervisor Carmen Ramirez.
Grandparents die
In Riverside County, there were days when ten of its hospitals used 100% beds, or more than its total licensed capacity, said Bruce Barton, director of emergency management in Riverside County.
In Orange County, COVID-19 is destroying families. Dr. Clayton Chau, director of the Orange County Health Care Agency, told the story of grandparents who were adopting their granddaughter in the eighth grade, whose mother died of cancer a few years ago.
‘They just died from COVID. Both, ”Chau said in a vote at a meeting of the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday. “We need to do something in our community quickly. It is not just the reopening of our economy that is important. But it’s about caring for our vulnerable community. Our seniors are dying. ”
Times staff writer Dakota Smith contributed to this report, as did Paul Sisson, Jonathan Wosen and Lori Weisberg of the San Diego Union Tribune.