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LOS ANGELES – The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health Friday confirmed another 47 deaths due to the coronavirus, boosting the county’s fatality toll to 1,755, and 962 new cases of the virus, lifting the countywide total to 36,259.<\/p>\n
To date (May 15), Covid-19 cases and deaths in the Antelope Valley include 543 cases and 11 deaths in Palmdale; 453 cases and eight deaths in Lancaster; 30 cases and seven deaths in Quartz Hill; 26 cases and two deaths in Lake Los Angeles; 29 cases and no deaths in the Littlerock\/Pearblossom, Juniper Hills areas; and eight cases and no deaths in Sun Village. View the latest detailed report here<\/a>.<\/p>\n With more businesses opening and the weather improving, Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer warned against residents gathering with friends and family, but recognized that such gatherings may occur.<\/p>\n “Seeing friends, we’re not recommending that at this point in time,” Ferrer said. “We are recommending that you continue to do your distancing in the ways that we’ve recommended before.<\/p>\n “… We do appreciate that there are circumstances where you may be around some other people, and in those circumstances, … we do recommend you’re at least keeping that six-foot distance and that you’re using a cloth face covering to try to protect other people, and they should do the same to protect you,” she said.<\/p>\n Despite the ever-increasing numbers, Ferrer again stressed that the rate of the virus’ spread has been slowed by the county’s Safer At Home orders mandating social distancing and asking people to remain home as much as possible.<\/p>\n She echoed numbers that were revealed Thursday, showing that on average, people who are infected with the virus are in turn infecting one other person. That’s down from an initial rate of three other people being infected by each patient.<\/p>\n “And that’s only because of all of the work that you’ve done,” Ferrer said. “So I ask you to continue to practice physical distancing, continue to wear your cloth face coverings when you’re among other people, because these actions work. This is your way of keeping other people safe.”<\/p>\n Dr. Christina Ghaly, the county’s health services director, said that if social-distancing and other restrictions had not been imposed, the coronavirus outbreak would be far worse.<\/p>\n “If everyone across Los Angeles County had not honored the Safer At Home health officer order, then we would be in the midst of a public health disaster the likes of which none of us would like to be experiencing, and that would be difficult to imagine,” she said.<\/p>\n An interactive dashboard is available that provides comprehensive information on COVID-19 cases and deaths, along with maps and graphs showing data by city and community.\u00a0 To view Public Health\u2019s COVID-19 Surveillance Dashboard, visit:\u00a0http:\/\/dashboard.publichealth.lacounty.gov\/covid19_surveillance_dashboard\/<\/a><\/p>\n –<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" LOS ANGELES – The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health Friday confirmed another 47 deaths due to the coronavirus, boosting the county’s fatality toll to 1,755, and 962 new cases of the virus, lifting the countywide total to 36,259. To date (May 15), Covid-19 cases and deaths in the Antelope Valley include 543 cases […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":92223,"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":[1497,15,1502,10,1493,1496,11],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93260"}],"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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=93260"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93260\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/92223"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93260"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93260"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93260"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}