LA's COVID Case Surge May Be Tapering Off, Official Says

LOS ANGELES (CBSLA) – Although Los Angeles County has seen a spike in coronavirus cases over the past several weeks due to the highly-contagious Delta variant, its public health chief says there could be some positive news on the horizon.

L.A. County Public Health Director Dr. Barbara Ferrer said Thursday that the rate of infections is slowing and the testing-positivity rate is down, indicators that the surge may be leveling off.

The county reported another 3,672 COVID-19 infections on Thursday and 19 deaths from the disease.

Ferrer said the county's current rate of new cases is 21.1 per 100,000 residents, which is a drop from 24 per 100,000 last week. The average daily rate of people testing positive for the virus is 4.73%, down a full percentage point from last week.

"Although today's rate will likely change somewhat over the coming days as additional test results are reported, this does suggest to us that our rise in cases may be leveling out," Ferrer said.

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Ferrer said that on Aug. 1, the county had seen a 22% week-over-week increase in new cases -- while the increase in the rest of the state was 57%. That's a sign, she said, that L.A. County -- which implemented a mandatory indoor mask-wearing mandate in mid-July -- is now seeing slower transmission of the virus.

Ferrer said it was too early to say if the mask requirement is responsible for the county's improvement, "but I know for sure it contributed."

Vaccination efforts are also improving in the county, with more than 81,000 first doses administered in the week ending Aug. 1 -- the third week in a row the number has increased, after a long period of declines.

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Among county residents age 12 and over, 6.22 million have received at least one dose, and 5.45 million are fully vaccinated. Of the county's overall 10.3 million residents -- including more than a million who aren't eligible for the shots -- 61% have received at least one dose of vaccine, and 53% are fully vaccinated.

Ferrer again highlighted the danger of the virus to unvaccinated residents, noting that from May 1 to July 17, people who haven't been vaccinated were nearly four times more likely to be infected with COVID than vaccinated residents. Of the 3,158 people who were hospitalized in the county during that time period, only 8% were fully vaccinated.

According to state figures, there were 1,370 coronavirus patients hospitalized in L.A. County as of Thursday morning, including 297 people in intensive care.

Ferrer said that between April 1 and July 18, 95.2% of the people age 16 and older who died from COVID in L.A. County were unvaccinated.

As of Aug. 3, among roughly 5 million fully vaccinated people in the county, 15,628 had tested positive for the virus, for an infection rate of 0.31%. Just 446 were hospitalized, for a rate of 0.009% and 41 had died, a rate of 0.0008%.

(© Copyright 2021 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. City News Service contributed to this report.)