“The R has been creeping up gradually over the past three weeks,” said dr. Christina Ghaly, the director of the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services, said Monday. The rate is the calculated rate of Covid-19 transfer in the province.
Provincial director of public health Barbara Ferrer reported during a Zoom meeting with reporters that the estimated dispatch number in early March was 0.93, up from 0.87 the previous week. The range of uncertainty is from .085 to 1.04. Any R number of more than 1 means that each infected person transmits the virus to more than one other resident of the country. In an environment of 10 million, infections can snowball quickly.
According to a LA County report released Monday, the decline in patients at local hospitals has also begun to slow. Due to the variety of uncertainties in the R-number, it is currently unclear whether ‘the number of hospitalizations will continue to decline, remain stable or increase’.
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By comparison, R rose from 0.95 to 1.02 in a week in early November. We all know what happened shortly thereafter. But March 2021 is very different from November 2020.
As the R rose, Ghaly said that ‘the basis on which the R acts is incredibly important. The bottom line of business that we are working on right now is incredibly important. ”
Indeed, officials on Monday reported just 516 new cases and nine additional deaths, although the relatively low numbers may reflect the delays of the weekend’s reporting. In early November, the province reported about 1,800 new daily cases and 22 additional deaths. The daily totals are therefore far, far below where they were even a month ago, which means that an increase in transmission would not have the same impact as it once would.
“I do not think we will NEVER return to the disaster we saw in the spring and early summer,” said the usually cautious Ferrer. ‘There are a large number of people [now] vaccinated. We are nowhere near herd immunity, “she continued,” but there is a lot of protection. In our competent nursing homes we will not see an increase as in June. ‘Ferrer said the same goes for medical care workers, many of whom are now being vaccinated.
Ferrer encouraged caution, even as she announced a wider reopening for pubs and breweries. She noted that Miami, which sees the Spring Break crowd, has a positive percentage of 9%. According to LAs, LA’s number is 1.70%.
“If you look at the cases in one week in places like Michigan … up to 3,000 within one week,” Ferrer said she does not want to see a peak in LA.
Asked whether increased public activity or more contagious variants could be to blame for the data, Ghaly speculates that it is likely a combination of the two.
“Just based on the timing, it’s not based on the reopening,” she said. “It simply does not agree. The model notes that the rate of hospitalizations is slowing. These may not be the variants and may also be behaviors, but probably a combination of the two. ‘