Los Angeles County has officially met the criteria to drop from “high” to “medium” level of COVID-19 community spread, Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer announced Thursday.
“In the past week, we’ve had significant further declines in cases and a decline in hospital admissions,” Ferrer said.
The hospital admission rate dropped to 9.9 per 1,000 people, just below the 10 per 1,000 people threshold implemented by the Centers for Disease Control.
Citing falling statistics and an expected return to the “medium” level, L.A. County declined to reinstate a mask mandate last month.
Before that decision was announced, cities including Beverly Hills, Pasadena, Long Beach and El Segundo had stated they would not enforce any mask mandate.
On Thursday, Ferrer announced 4,345 new COVID-19 cases in Los Angeles County, with an average of slightly under 3,800 cases reported per day over the past week, marking a 22% decrease from 4,900 cases per day.
Given the drop in the total number of cases, “we’re about to see the declines in the case rates finally translate into decreases in reported deaths. These deaths continue to take family members away from those that love them,” Ferrer said.