WITH summer in full swing, Los Angeles County officials are warning residents to continue to practice COVID-19 safety measures — or else the indoor mask-wearing mandate could be reinstated by the end of July.
LA County is reportedly on track to reach “high” COVID-19 activity level as hospitalizations related to the virus are continuing to rise.
If the county remains in the high level designation for two consecutive weeks, the indoor mask mandate would be implemented, according to the LA County Department of Public Health on Friday, July 8.
“We can’t predict with certainty what the future hospitalization trend will look like. However, it is looking more likely, as cases and admissions have continued to increase, that we’ll enter the high community level designation later this month,” LA County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer said in a briefing on Thursday, July 7.
Following the U.S. Centers of Disease Control and Prevention’s monitoring, the region is currently considered in the “medium” virus activity level. The hospital admission rate is 8.4%, increasing 62% in the last month.
It would reach the “high” level should the seven-day average of new COVID-related hospitalizations reaches 10 per 100,000 residents.
“With increasing rates of transmission associated with highly infectious subvariants that evade some of the previous acquired immunity from vaccines and previous COVID infections, we are all dealing with elevated risk. We all now face a higher risk of getting COVID because there are more people infected with the virus who can transmit to others when we gather, go shopping, or attend events. Essential workers, especially those that work directly with the public, also now have more exposures to the virus during their workday. Fortunately, we have sensible steps we all can take to reduce this increased risk without forgoing the activities we love,” Ferrer said in a statement.
She cited measures such as mask wearing, testing before gathering, staying at home if sick or exposed to the virus and getting vaccinated and boosted.
On Friday, Public Health reported 18 additional deaths and 6,416 new positive cases. Of the 18 new deaths reported, one person was between the ages of 18-29, four people were between the ages of 30-49, two people were between the ages of 50-64, four people were between the ages of 65-79, and seven people were aged 80 years or older. Of the 18 newly reported deaths, 16 had underlying health conditions. To date, the total number of deaths in LA County is 32,413.
Public Health has reported a total of 3,160,032 positive cases of COVID-19 across all areas of LA County. Today’s positivity rate is 15.7%.
There are 1,021 people with COVID-19 currently hospitalized. Testing results are available for more than 12,217,954 individuals, with 23% of people testing positive.
The county said BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants combined account for nearly 40% of the specimens sequenced, signaling high concern. n