Despite some promising signs that the worst wave of the COVID-19 pandemic may finally subside, a top health official in Los Angeles County on Wednesday warned that the situation remains uncertain, with thousands of people becoming infected every day and an unsustainable number patients in need of hospitalization. treatment.
“The end is not yet in sight,” said Barbara Ferrer, director of public health.
Although the province has recently seen a welcome decrease in the number of coronavirus-positive patients in its hospitals, as well as the daily infection rate, Ferrer emphasized that ‘COVID-19 is still rampant in our workplaces, in our neighborhoods and in fact across every corner of this region. ”
“As more people are vaccinated, it’s important to remember that we have a long way to go before we say goodbye to COVID-19,” she said.
After all, there are signs that the road ahead may not be that difficult.
In the past week, the county reported an average of 11,369 new cases per day – a 25% decrease from the seven-day period that ended on January 13, when LA County averaged 15,102 cases per day, according to data by The Tye.
However, it remains too early to say whether this is a blip or the start of a new trend, as recent case numbers are likely to be distorted by the closure of test sites and delays in data reporting during the Martin Luther King Jr. Day-weekend. Test capability also declined with the conversion of Dodger Stadium to a vaccination site.
However, Ferrer said that “we are very hopeful that the actions taken by many people are starting to work”, and that the coronavirus transmission rate is finally starting to decline.
Although the decline is legal, officials said it is only a fraction of what is needed to ease tensions at overwhelming hospitals and overworked medical staff. As Ferrer noted, “With a large number of daily cases, hundreds of people will need hospitalization each week.”
COVID-19 hospitalizations have also shut down, though it is far too high to provide real comfort. There were 7,263 coronavirus-positive patients hospitalized nationwide on Tuesday, according to the latest available state data, which is about 10% lower than the record high of 8,098 that occurred on January 5th.
However, the number of COVID patients in need of intensive care remained relatively low during the same period – falling to 1,692 on Tuesday, just 2% lower than the record high of 1,731 on 8 January.
Although the decline in overall hospitalization brings a much-needed relief, ‘Ferrer said,’ it is nowhere near the number we need to get to, to really avoid all the changes that had to be made in hospitals to accommodate ‘the pressure’ of patients.
But every day that passes with the numbers staying flat or even the lower races, the optimism is that the country is possibly coming out of the boom after Christmas.
Although it seems less serious than the boom after Thanksgiving, Ferrer said she does not believe “we escaped a bullet because our hospitals are still overwhelmed, and I think we are still seeing an increase in cases from saw the holiday season. “
Ferrer said she is “at this point” confident that we will really see less transmission in our communities as we move forward. [It’s] not nearly low enough to catch a sigh of relief because all the numbers are too high, but that might mean we can stabilize and hopefully start to see a significant decline. ”
At the state level, officials have expressed some cautious optimism.
Over the seven-day period that ended Wednesday, the state averaged about 33,000 new cases a day, significantly lower than the approximately 45,000 seen earlier this month, according to Times data.
However, some officials insisted on not reading too much into the issue. Business rates have fluctuated over the past few weeks as holidays closed temporary test sites and delayed reporting results.
“It may still be that we will see some extra cases that may arise from the time of the new year,” said dr. Robert Kim-Farley, a medical epidemiologist and expert in infectious diseases at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health, said Tuesday. It would be wise, he said, “before we get too optimistic to let a few more days pass to make sure we have full reporting for this last period.”
But, he added, “cautious optimism may be in order.”
One promising point is that the rate at which tests confirm the infection – an important indicator of the spread of the coronavirus – has dropped.
In the first week of January, about 14.3% of tests in California returned positive, the highest percentage since April. The positive rate of seven days fell to 9.7% from Wednesday, according to government data. (In LA County, the daily positivity rate dropped to 20% by New Year’s Eve by Wednesday.)
The number of COVID-19 patients admitted to hospital across the country also tumbled, falling below 20,000 on Tuesday for the first time since December 27.
Of the 19,979 coronavirus-positive patients in California hospitals, 4,682 are in intensive care units.
The COVID-19 hospitalizations in California peaked about two weeks ago on January 6, hitting 21,938. The number of COVID-19 patients in ICUs around the world entered on January 10, when there were 4,868.
Dr. Mark Ghaly, secretary of health and human services in California, said the state “did not see as important during the Christmas and New Year holidays” as expected, and although there may still be some deviation, officials hopeful that the number will continue to decline.
“Hopefully by the end of the month we are even lower than the number we see here,” he said Tuesday. “This is great news, as we expected to have more than 25,000 admissions to our hospitals across the country.”
But many Californians are still paying the ultimate price of the pandemic.
On Wednesday, health departments across the country confirmed that another 617 Californians had died from COVID-19, the sixth highest daily total to date, according to The Times. Of those, 206 deaths were reported in LA County, the third-highest one-day count of the pandemic.
But the trend has improved. At the beginning of January, California recorded up to 534 COVID-19 deaths per day; by Wednesday, the state had recorded 485 deaths a day in the past week. LA County had 241 COVID-19 deaths per day in early January; the province had an average of 206 deaths per day on Wednesday.
Cumulatively, more than 35,000 Californians died from COVID-19, including more than 14,000 in LA County. There were more than 3 million cumulative coronavirus cases in California, including more than 1 million in LA County.
It takes time for increases or decreases in infections to cause a corresponding movement in the death toll, and so many who were infected weeks ago can still die from COVID-19.
While the state now sees ‘that spark of hope, that bright light’, Ghaly said California is “still in the tunnel at this point, but hopefully through the darkest part”.
But a steady downward move is not inevitable. Officials stress that residents, even with the recent arrival of COVID-19 vaccines, should continue to wear masks in public, to avoid meetings with those outside their households and to wash their hands regularly.
The emergence of a more transmissible mutant variant of the coronavirus could easily complicate the path from California to recovery. There are two variants circulating in the state that officials are looking at: a variant first identified in Britain, B.1.1.7, which is believed to be 50% more transferable; and a variant first identified in Denmark, L452R, as far as officials are concerned, may be more transferable, but require additional study to determine if this is the case.
“When there is more transmission, there are more cases and we have all seen … that more cases eventually lead to more deaths,” Ferrer said.