Los Angeles County surpassed public health officials’ benchmarks for triggering tougher anti-coronavirus business restrictions, as 2,718 new infections were reported Sunday, Nov. 22. The new rules will restrict dining at restaurants, breweries, wineries and bars to takeout, drive-thru or delivery service.
The numbers pushed the county’s five-day average caseload of infections to 4,097, with 20,487 new cases reported since Wednesday.
In person dining will not be allowed, at minimum, for the next 3 weeks, officials said.
Hospitalizations, too, are posting dramatic increases, up to 1,401 on Sunday — the highest since August — representing a major increase from a month ago when daily hospitalizations were around 730. The number of people hospitalized patients increased by about 35% over the past seven days.
Under thresholds released this week in response to the relentless surge in cases, health officials last week said restaurants, wineries and breweries would be closed for in-person dining if the county reached a five-day average of 4,000 or more cases, or if hospitalizations topped 1,750.
If the county’s five-day daily case average exceeds 4,500, or if hospitalizations top 2,000, the county will issue a strict “Safer At Home” order — much like the one imposed at the onset of the pandemic. The order would allow only essential workers to leave home, or people who are accessing essential services.
The county also reported nine additional deaths on Sunday. To date, Public Health has identified 364,520 positive cases of COVID-19 across all areas of L.A. County and a total of 7,43 deaths.
“We send our deepest sympathies to the families and friends that are grieving a loved one lost to COVID-19,” said Barbara Ferrer, director of Public Health on Saturday. “Although this pandemic seems like it will never end, I assure you that it will.
County health officials reported 4,522 new coronavirus infections on Saturday, Nov. 21, just days after the county reported its worst single-day report since the pandemic began, with more than 5,000 infections posted on Thursday.
Sunday’s county update did not include new figures from Long Beach or Pasadena, which operate their own health departments.
LA County, like others in the state’s most restrictive “purple tier,” began a curfew Saturday night, from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. through Dec. 21. People are allowed to shop for groceries, pick up food and walk their dogs.
All the new restrictions could prove to be setbacks for the region’s economy, and signals an inability to contain the spread after months of hope that L.A. County could maintain relatively lower case rates and hospitalizations, even as the the middle of the country was seeing a major surge.
Containment, however, does not appear be at hand.
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Source:: Los Angeles Daily News