Los Angeles County has reached 1,000 deaths related to the novel coronavirus as 59 additional fatalities were reported on Tuesday, April 28.
Among the new fatalities reported by the LA County Department of Public Health, 36 individuals were over the age of 65 years old, 16 people who died were between the ages of 41 to 65 years old, and one person who died was between the ages of 18 and 40 years old and had an underlying health condition.
Forty-one other individuals also had underlying health conditions — 28 over age 65 and 13 between 41-65 years old.
“LA County has hit the tragic milestone of 1,000 people dying from COVID-19,” Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer said in a statement.
The latest figures from the department also include 597 new positive cases, bringing the total to 20,976 across the county.
This comes less than a month until the county’s safer at home order is set to expire on May 15 and as the County Board of Supervisors put forth a motion to ease restrictions.
Nearly 50% or 462 county deaths have occurred in institutional settings, which include nursing homes, assisted living facilities, shelters, treatment centers, supportive living and correctional facilities.
The total confirmed cases in these places is 4,488, including 2,656 residents and 1,832 staff.
“While managers and staff at all our skilled nursing facilities are doing their very best under difficult circumstances to care for their residents, we are still seeing many cases and deaths among residents and staff in these facilities. We need to accelerate our ability to quickly identify and isolate asymptomatic, as well as symptomatic, residents and staff, and quarantine those who are close contacts,” Ferrer said.
To date, the department has investigated 333 institutions, which have had at least one confirmed or suspected case of COVID-19.
Based on data from 98% of the death cases, Asian residents were the third largest racial group affected at 18%, behind Latinos at 37% and 29% White residents.
As of Tuesday, 4,507 people who tested positive for COVID-19 (21% of positive cases) have been hospitalized at some point during their illness. Testing capacity continues to increase in LA County, with testing results available for over 133,000 individuals and 14% of people testing positive.