LA County Health Officials Urge Residents To Stay Home As 3,123 New Cases Of COVID-19 Are Reported
LOS ANGELES (CBSLA) -- Los Angeles County health officials are still urging residents to stay home as much as possible over the next three weeks in order to prevent a large surge in COVID-19 transmission.
The county reported another 3,123 cases on Saturday, raising the cumulative case total to 390,891.
Another 19 virus-related fatalities were also reported, bringing the death toll to 7,623.
Officials said the case numbers were likely lower because testing centers were closed on Thursday and limited on Friday due to the holiday.
The number of county residents that were hospitalized rose from 1,893 on Friday to 1,951 on Saturday.
Also on Saturday, officials held a press conference to detail the limited stay-at-home orders that will take effect on Monday to curb the spread of the virus.
"We have done this successfully before and we can do it again,'' County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer said of efforts to stem the surge in new cases, deaths and hospitalizations.
According to the county, every COVID-19 patient in the county is transmitting the virus to an average of 1.27 people — which is the highest transmission rate the county has seen since March.
Based on that transmission rate, health officials estimate one of every 145 people in the county are now infected with the virus and transmitting it to others.
"This doesn't include people that are currently hospitalized or isolated at home,'' county Health Services Director Dr. Christina Ghaly said. "This is the estimate of people that are out and about and infecting others. They may not know they're infected. They may know they're infected and not be isolating. But they're out there and they're exposing other people to the virus.''
Ghaly added that, based on the current transmission rate, the number of hospitalizations could double in two weeks and quadruple in a month.
"Based on the current estimate for (the virus transmission rate) and assuming that there's no change in people's behavior that would affect transmissions, there will likely be shortages in the number of hospital beds, and especially in ICU beds or intensive-care unit beds, over the next two to four weeks,'' she said.
(© Copyright 2020 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. City News Service contributed to this report.)
