LA County COVID-19 Deaths Rise; Restaurants Struggle To Meet Health Protocols
LOS ANGELES (CBSLA) — Los Angeles County officials announced another 19 coronavirus-related fatalities Monday and 1,071 newly confirmed COVID-19 cases, bringing countywide totals to 2,926 deaths and 73,791 cases.
Despite increasing case and fatalities, county officials said they remained confident in their decision to move forward with economic recovery efforts, though some businesses — such as reopened dine-in restaurants — have struggled to comply with mandatory protocols for social distancing and limited capacity.
According to the county's public health director, Dr. Barbara Ferrer, inspectors visited 2,000 restaurants over the weekend and found that half were not in compliance with local health orders.
"They'll be revisiting all of the restaurants that were not in compliance and issuing them an order to come into compliance," Ferrer said. "We've been doing a lot of education, but starting this week we're actually going to revisit places where we noted that people still had concerns, they had confusion, they hadn't quite made the changes."
Changes include placing tables at least six feet away from one another or having physical barriers between them and limiting capacity indoors to ensure proper physical distancing can be maintained.
"I want to note that 50% of the restaurants we visited were in complete compliance, which is way up from where we were the first weekend," Ferrer said. "So I want to thank all those restaurants that are in fact doing their very best to adhere to the protocols and put in place those measures that offer safety."
County officials continued to stress the need for people to wear face coverings and practice social distancing when in public, warning that reopening more businesses was not a sign that the coronavirus pandemic has subsided.
In reporting the latest case figures, Ferrer said one more homeless person has died from COVID-19 in the county, raising the total to 16.
She also said that 22% of the overall county's total cases have occurred in institutional settings, including 1,541 deaths — 89% of them in nursing homes.
Among healthcare workers and first responders, Ferrer said 6,561 cases have been reported and 44 healthcare workers have died as a result of the virus — 32 of whom worked in skilled nursing facilities or assisted living centers.
The numbers of new deaths and confirmed cases are typically lower on Mondays and Tuesday as figures are compiled from the weekend.
(© Copyright 2020 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. City News Service contributed to this report.)
