Los Angeles County continues to see a decline in COVID-19 hospitalizations, reporting numbers on Saturday not seen since June.
There were 1,393 people hospitalized for COVID-19 across the county Saturday, with 33% of them in intensive care units.
“Daily hospitalizations numbers continue to decline and today’s numbers haven’t been seen since mid-June,” the L.A. County Department of Public Health said in a news release.
Hospitalizations spiked towards the end of June and peaked in July, when the county saw a record number of COVID-19 patients at hospitals, more than 2,000 people being treated in hospitals for the respiratory illness.
Though the county continues to see high rates of coronavirus transmission, especially among younger residents, Health Director Barbara Ferrer has said the decline in hospitalizations marks “significant progress.”
The county recorded another 2,103 coronavirus cases and 35 new deaths attributed to COVID-19 Saturday, bringing the countywide case total to 220,762 with 5,245 deaths.
The totals are still missing cases that haven’t been counted due to a technical issue with the state’s lab system, county officials said. The issue is expected to be corrected in the coming days.
The overall seven-day average number of deaths attributed to the respiratory illness is down in L.A. County, but areas with the highest poverty levels continue to see increased COVID-19 fatalities, according to county data.
The county averaged about 41 daily COVID-19 deaths for several days towards the end of July, but the daily average is now at 32 deaths.
As of Friday, L.A. County’s seven-day coronavirus positivity rate stood at 6.1% — a decline from the 7.3% rate reported at the start of the week.
With a heat wave scorching the region and people heading to the beach to cool down, Ferrer on Saturday urged residents to practice physical distancing and wear face coverings.
“In spite of the heat, we still need to continue taking every measure possible to slow the spread of the COVID-19 and reduce community transmission rates so we can re-open our schools and get more people back to work,”she said.
Correction: A previous version of this story misstated when daily coronavirus-related hospitalizations first exceeded 2,000. The post has been updated.
