“I hope all Los Angeles County residents will start the new year by asking what each of us can do to stop the spread of COVID-19,” said Barbara Ferrer, PhD, MPH, MEd, Director of Public Health. “If we fail to use the tools currently available, our frontline healthcare workers, now caring for distressingly large numbers of COVID-19 patients, will face many more weeks of increasing numbers of patients and the heartbreaking loss of many lives.”
The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health continues to urge the public to stay home. They are anticipating another surge due to Christmas and New Year’s traveling and socializing outside of households that took place during the holidays. They stated that January could possibly be the worst we’ve seen of the pandemic.
The numbers continue to climb among healthcare workers testing positive with COVID-19. Since the beginning of the pandemic, 28,448 healthcare workers and first responders tested positive for COVID-19. Half of the cases are Latino/Latinx healthcare workers with 67% of cases among women. The L.A. County Health Dept. has stated 86% of healthcare workers who passed away had underlying health conditions. The breakdown of COVID-19 deaths among healthcare workers so far has been: 67 at skilled nursing and long-term care facilities; 21 among healthcare workers at hospitals with 11 deaths at outpatient facilities. Out of nurses, 39% continue to account for the majority of deaths among healthcare workers.
As of Saturday, January 2, the county has received 189,995 doses of the Pfizer vaccine with 96,390 doses going to frontline healthcare workers. Also, the county has received 81,571 Moderna doses with 22,221 going to staff and residents at skilled nursing facilities including EMT’s and paramedics. According to the Los Angeles Health Dept., the next Pfizer rollout, consisting of 82,745 doses, will be second doses to the first group of healthcare workers vaccinated in mid-December. It’s been stated the coming 50,700 Moderna doses will go to priority groups in Tier 2 of Phase 1A. Tier 2 includes healthcare workers at urgent care and primary care clinics, home healthcare workers and healthcare field workers.
As of Monday, January 4, the L.A. County Dept. of Public Health confirmed 77 new deaths and new cases 9,142 of COVID-19. There were 6,914 people with COVID-19 hospitalized with 20% of these people in the ICU. Since early November, the daily hospitalizations of people with COVID-19 has increased more than 905%.
Public Health identified 827,498 positive cases of COVID-19 across all areas of L.A. County and a total of 10,850 deaths. Across the Southland: Los Angeles County shows 787,217 cases, Long Beach with 33,271 cases and Pasadena with 7,010. According to race and ethnicity, COVID-19 statistics show: American Indian/Alaska Native with 1,300; Asian with 30,008; Black with 25,630; Hispanic/Latino with 345,719; Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander with 2,943; White with 74,339; those of other race and ethnicity with 78,597 and 228,681 under investigation.
“It’s better to be lonely than sick; better to care for others by following all the rules than to end up passing along the virus to someone who gets hospitalized or even dies,” said Ferrer. “We are grateful to the frontline healthcare workers who are fighting hard to save thousands of lives, but we all know that there are certain people who simply won’t survive the ravages of this powerful virus.
“This heartache does not need to continue.”
For more information and statistics on COVID-19 in Los Angeles County, please visit http://publichealth.lacounty.gov/
