As of Monday, March 8, the L.A. County Dept. of Public Health confirmed 13 new deaths and 880 new cases of COVID-19. There were 1,132 people with COVID-19 hospitalized with of 31% these people in the ICU.
Public Health identified 1,204,018 positive cases of COVID-19 across all areas of L.A. County and a total of 19,095 deaths. Cases across the Southland: Los Angeles County shows 1,141,560 cases, Long Beach with 51,475 cases and Pasadena with 10,983. According to race and ethnicity, COVID-19 statistics show: American Indian/Alaska Native with 1,918; Asian with 51,805; Black with 41,374; Hispanic/Latino with 562,151; Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander with 4,152; White with 117,196; those of other race and ethnicity with 106,688 and 256,276 under investigation.
As we head into Spring, the state is making plans to open up major venues within a limited capacity. The State is also paying close attention to vaccination rates as it slowly moves from the purple tier to the red tier, then eventually orange tier to yellow tier. The state also anticipates administering 2 million doses to hard hit communities by the end of the week.
“We are at a point in the pandemic where we have a great deal of optimism,” said Barbara Ferrer, PhD, MPH, MEd, Director of Public Health. “We are making progress on vaccinating our residents, cases, hospitalizations and deaths are decreasing, and we are likely moving into a less restrictive tier.
She continued, “In order for us to maintain progress, we will need to continue making slowing transmission a central part of our day-to-day lives. That means choosing not to travel and choosing not to gather with large numbers of people we do not live with. It also means wearing a mask and keeping distance whenever we are outside of our home and around others. Let’s please keep this positive momentum going so all of our children can return to school as safely as possible and we can continue to prevent illness and save lives.”
The State announced the reopening of outdoor sporting events, live outdoor concerts and theme parks, starting on April 1. There will be capacity and infection control parameters in place. For counties in the purple tier, outdoor events will be limited to 100 people or less with reservations being a requirement, and concessions will not be allowed. Events will allow only regional residents to attend. When the state reaches the red tier, outdoor events can open at 20% capacity, limited to in-state visitors only; concessions will be allowed only while seated.
Public Health is also preparing for schools to be permitted, in the red tier, to open for on-site learning for grades 7-12. Schools must have an updated State COVID-19 Safety Plan (CSP), including the Cal/OSHA COVID-19 Prevention Program and the CDPH COVID-19 School Guidance Checklist posted to the school or district website no less than five days before their planned opening date.
Another big update comes from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, who issued guidance stating that fully vaccinated people can gather indoors with other fully vaccinated people in small groups without wearing masks or practicing physical distancing.
They added individuals are considered fully vaccinated two weeks or more after they received the second dose of either Pfizer or Moderna vaccine or two weeks or more after they received the single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine. Fully vaccinated individuals can also visit with unvaccinated individuals who are low risk without wearing masks or social distancing. Fully vaccinated or not, everyone is still advised to wear masks and maintain physical distance in public.
For more information and statistics on COVID-19 in Los Angeles County, please visit http://publichealth.lacounty.gov/
For more detailed information on COVID-19 vaccination plans in L.A. County and to sign up for a vaccination newsletter, visit: www.VaccinateLACounty.com
