There was good news and bad news on the LA Covid-19 front on Friday. On the one hand, headline numbers were low almost across the board. On the other hand, as the virus variants worried about officials and vaccine launches stalled in the region, there was concern of a further increase.
“Cases have peaked at about 15,000 cases a day, and it now appears that they are declining,” he said. Angels Provincial Science Chief Dr. Paul Simon.
The daily number of Covid-19 deaths reported by the county remained high, with 256 deaths announced on Friday. It is the third day in a row that the number has exceeded 200, with 262 deaths reported on Wednesday and Thursday.
The province also reported 9,277 more cases, but health officials indicated Thursday that the average daily number of new cases had decreased by 30% in the past week.
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The latest figures provided by the state showed that 7,073 people are receiving treatment in the county, including 1,687 in intensive care. This is a significant drop from the more than 8,000 patients reported in early January and gave hope that the number of hospitalizations will drop below 7,000 for the first time this year.
COVID-19 Daily Update:
January 22, 2021
New cases: 9,277 (1,054,802 so far)
New deaths: 262 (14,894 so far)
Current hospitalizations: 7073 pic.twitter.com/mARqx1UE26– LA Public Health (@lapublichealth) January 22, 2021
Simon said, “Despite these promising trends, I want to stress that the number of cases, hospitalizations and deaths remains extremely high. So while there is reason to feel hopeful, we must all remain vigilant and continue to be disciplined.”
Simon also noticed that though Victory Of the 7,730 vaccinations on Thursday at Dodger Stadium earlier this week, the county was struggling to get the vaccines available. He blamed a lack of available doses and continued uncertainty about future allocations. He noted that the large-scale vaccination sites in the county that opened this week – each capable of giving 4,000 shots a day – will work at a much lower capacity next week, probably only 2,000 to 2,500 vaccines per day. why?
The province expects to receive about 143,900 additional doses of the vaccine next week. However, since people need to receive two doses of the drug, spaced three to four weeks apart, the bulk of the next vaccine will be used the next week to give second doses to people who have already received the first shot. Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer earlier estimated that only 37,900 doses of doses coming next week would be available for people to receive their first dose.
Simon said Friday that the latest figures showed that 44,140 doses of the vaccine had already been administered in the county, although he said that number was likely to be much higher due to delays in calculating total vaccinations. As of this week, the county has received approximately 853,000 total doses.
Simon said people should not look at those numbers and assume there are 400,000 unused doses in the county, again citing the delay in vaccination reports and the daily administration of doses. He also indicated the need to use a lot of drugs as second doses for people who have already taken them
He got the first shot.
If the county’s weekly allocation does not improve significantly beyond the current average of around 150,000, Simon said, the vaccination effort will likely extend to 2022.
“We hope to increase vaccine production and shipments to California,” he said. We have a new federal administration that’s committed to doing this. We also hope that many other vaccine manufacturers will obtain federal authorization for the emergency use of their vaccines in the coming months, and this should help increase supplies to California and ultimately to Los Angeles County.
If the county were to increase its allocations to 500,000 a week, he said, “we will have the ability to reach 75% of the county’s adult population, or 6 million adults, by midsummer.”
Meanwhile, he urged patience, saying, “We understand how important it is to get the vaccine out as soon as possible.”
Even as the numbers of Covid cases and hospitalizations decrease, the urgency of a vaccine has been stressed Increasing reports About new viral variants – some in California – that may be more contagious, and possibly less vulnerable to current vaccines.
The City News Service contributed to this report.
