Los Angeles County public health officials reinstated a mask requirement at health care facilities as respiratory virus infections — including COVID-19 and the flu — increase.
“Over the past week in Los Angeles County, there have been notable, yet not unexpected, increases in COVID-19 reported cases, hospitalizations and deaths,” the L.A. County Department of Public Health said in a press release. “While recent increases are significant, they remain considerably below last winter’s peak and common-sense protections are strongly recommended to help curb transmission and severe illness as the new year begins.”
An upswing in recent COVID cases have pushed the county into the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s “medium” COVID level. The threshold for the medium level is between 10 and 19.9 new COVID hospital admissions per 100,000 population over seven days.
For the week ending Dec. 23, the CDC reported 10.5 new COVID hospital admissions per 100,000 people in L.A. County, a 30% increase from the prior week.
COVID-19 cases rose by more than 25% from 495 in the week ending Dec. 16 to 621 in the week ending Dec. 23. Health officials noted the actual number of cases is likely much higher because many people use at-home kits to test for the virus.
“Sadly, there has also been an appreciable increase in the daily average deaths due to COVID-19,” the health department said, also reporting an average of five deaths due to COVID per day in the last week of December — an increase from two at the beginning of the month.
The public health order issued Dec. 27 will remain in effect until L.A. County drops back into the CDC’s “low” category for two weeks, and applies to health workers and visitors in patient care areas of hospitals, nursing…
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