{"id":105981,"date":"2022-01-04T21:08:16","date_gmt":"2022-01-05T05:08:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/?p=105981"},"modified":"2022-01-04T21:09:24","modified_gmt":"2022-01-05T05:09:24","slug":"covid-positive-patients-surge-past-2000-mark-in-la-county-hospitals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/2022\/01\/04\/covid-positive-patients-surge-past-2000-mark-in-la-county-hospitals\/","title":{"rendered":"COVID-positive patients surge past 2,000 mark in LA County hospitals"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The number of COVID-19-positive patients in Los Angeles County surged well above the 2,000 mark Tuesday amid a surge in infections that has seen daily case numbers skyrocket over the past two weeks.<\/p>\n

According to state figures, there were 2,240 COVID-positive patients in county hospitals as of Tuesday, a jump from 1,994 on Monday. Of those patients, 303 were being treated in intensive care, an increase from 278 a day earlier.\u00a0The hospitalization number is the highest it has been since last February in the midst of another winter COVID surge. Due to rising patient numbers, the county Department of Public Health on Monday urged residents to avoid visiting hospital emergency rooms unless they urgently need emergency care.<\/p>\n

“Residents should not be visiting the emergency department solely to get a COVID test or for minor complaints that could be resolved through their primary care physician,” according to the county.<\/p>\n

Health officials have noted throughout the pandemic that many of the COVID-positive patients at hospitals were admitted for reasons other than the virus, and only learned they were infected when they were tested upon arrival. Dr. Christina Ghaly, the county’s health services director, told the Los Angeles Times that about two-thirds of the COVID-positive patients at the four county-operated hospitals were admitted for something other than COVID.<\/p>\n

The rising patient numbers, however, have led to concerns about the stability of the hospital system, with authorities saying staffing issues will limit hospitals’ ability to rapidly expand patient capacity they way they did last winter, when COVID-positive patient numbers topped 8,000.<\/p>\n

County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer insisted Tuesday that people being treated for COVID in intensive care units are overwhelmingly unvaccinated. She against said statistics show that even though vaccinated people can become infected, they are far less likely to become seriously ill. According to the county, for the week of Dec. 15-28, unvaccinated people were 21 times more likely to wind up in an ICU than vaccinated people.<\/p>\n

“Even as transmission surges, we are seeing that vaccines are doing what they were intended to do, which is protect people from getting severely ill due to COVID,” Ferrer said in a statement. “We are grateful to the 80% of eligible residents who have already received at least one dose of vaccine — and we hope that the almost 2 million people who have yet to be vaccinated take time to talk with their health care provider to receive additional information about the safety and effectiveness of the vaccines.<\/p>\n

“Choosing not to take the vaccine during this explosive winter surge is very risky since so many of those ill with COVID in the intensive care units at hospitals are unvaccinated, and tragically, some of these individuals will not survive,” she said.<\/p>\n

With the highly transmissible Omicron variant of COVID-19 fueling spread of the virus, the county’s case numbers have been skyrocketing over the past week. The county reported nearly 45,000 new cases over the weekend, following a daily record high of 27,091 new infections on Friday.\u00a0The county on Tuesday reported 24 more COVID deaths, bringing the overall death toll to 27,671. Another 21,790 cases were also confirmed, giving the county a cumulative total from throughout the pandemic of 1,780,154.\u00a0The rolling seven-day average daily rate of people testing positive for the virus was 22.5% as of Monday. That rate was below 1% in November.<\/p>\n

Health officials continued to urge residents to curtail higher-risk activities, including indoor activities where individuals are unmasked for long periods of time, as well as crowded outdoor events.<\/p>\n

–<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The number of COVID-19-positive patients in Los Angeles County surged well above the 2,000 mark Tuesday amid a surge in infections that has seen daily case numbers skyrocket over the past two weeks. According to state figures, there were 2,240 COVID-positive patients in county hospitals as of Tuesday, a jump from 1,994 on Monday. Of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":70,"featured_media":104174,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1497,15,1496],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105981"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/70"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=105981"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105981\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":105982,"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105981\/revisions\/105982"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/104174"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=105981"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=105981"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=105981"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}