LA County Officials Report Another 1,200 Coronavirus Cases, 34 Deaths; Garcetti Ramps Up Testing In City
LOS ANGELES (CBSLA) — Los Angeles County public health officials reported 1,260 newly confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus and 34 fatalities Wednesday, bringing countywide totals to 89,490 cases and 3,205 deaths.
Health officials also reported that the number of hospitalizations due to COVID-19 in the county continued its slow upward climb, a concerning trend as the state continues to reopen.
Gov. Gavin Newsom said Wednesday that the number of hospitalizations across the state has jumped by about 29% over the past two weeks.
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In L.A. County, the number has been slowing creeping up for the past week, growing to 1,556 on Wednesday — an increase of 41 from Tuesday — though health officials noted the number was still less than pandemic peaks of more than 1,900 and there was no immediate threat of hospitals becoming overwhelmed.
County health officials also reported Tuesday that the rate of people testing positive for the virus has been on the rise, a trend that Newsom said Wednesday was being seen statewide.
And on Wednesday evening, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti addressed the increase in cases saying the city was working to increase testing capacity.
"Today I directed our team to scale testing to meet the immediate heightened demand," he said. "As of last week, we were meeting demand, but we found a couple of days in which we didn't, so immediately we are going to be scaling up our testing."
Starting Thursday, Garcetti said the city would have the ability to test 13,700 people at its seven city test sites, an increase of 6,000.
(© Copyright 2020 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. City News Service contributed to this report.)
