LA county may return to ‘high’ COVID levels by Thursday due to hospitalizations, new variants

LOS ANGELES (KABC) – The ever-increasing hospitalization numbers have pushed Los Angeles County to the brink of moving into the category of “high” COVID activity levels, as defined by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer told the board of supervisors this week that the county is on pace to reach a “high” level by early Thursday.

And if the county remains at “high” levels for two weeks in a row, indoor mask-wearing will be required again.

As of Tuesday, more than 11,000 COVID patients had been hospitalized in LA County

In the emergency rooms and urgent care in the Los Angeles metropolitan area, there has been a steady increase in the number of patients seeking care for COVID-19.

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“It remains a high concern,” Ferrer said.

If entry continues, a bounce back to the “high-risk” community level is predicted by Thursday.

“If LA County moves to a higher community level and stays there for two weeks, indoor masking will expand to include all indoor public spaces,” Ferrer said.

The projection is based on the increase in hospitalizations over the past two weeks. Simultaneously, the accelerated growth of highly transmissible BA.4 and BA.5 omicron subvariants account for about two-thirds of new COVID cases nationwide.

“Such subvariants were always a possibility. We are seeing this virus evolve rapidly. We are planning and preparing for this moment,” said Dr. Ashish Jha, White House COVID Response Coordinator.

Variant-specific vaccines are expected to be available during this fall, Jha said, adding that Americans shouldn’t wait to catch up on their shots because even a recent infection isn’t enough to protect against new variants.

“If you get vaccinated today, you will not be ineligible to receive the variant-specific vaccine as we move into the fall and winter,” he said.

While COVID deaths are rising at a much slower pace than in previous surges, health officials have warned that when more people are infected, more people will die.

Ferrer said, “We have already seen more deaths from COVID than from any other infectious diseases – 557, and three times as many deaths from COVID as we did in a pre-pandemic flu season. saw.”

Ferrer said the current BA.5 surge has not peaked yet. She is urging residents to use all the tools at their disposal to catch up on masking, testing, therapeutics and COVID vaccination.