LA County has posted 3,318 new COVID-19 infections and 11 deaths. Increased access to vaccines on Sunday – Whittier Daily News

Los Angeles County reported 3,318 new cases of COVID-19 and 11 additional deaths on Saturday, July 31, as a relentless Delta variant expanded its reach in the region.

According to state statistics, the number of coronavirus cases in county hospitals also continued to skyrocket, rising from 1,008 on Friday to 1,071. The number of patients in the intensive care unit decreased by one to 231.

The county has seen a sharp increase in daily cases, hospitalizations, and test positive rates over the past few weeks, due to unpredictable and highly infectious Delta strains. Authorities continue to promote vaccines as a primary weapon in combating the proliferation of viruses.

Starting this weekend, all five county-operated vaccination sites will open on Sunday. business hours:

— 11 am-6pm at Norwalk, Commerce, Ted Watkins Center.When

— 8 am-3pm at Balboa and Obregon facilities.

For more information on access to vaccines County vaccination website..

The public health team continues to provide vaccines at 772 sites in the county, including pharmacies, clinics, community sites, and hospitals. The mobile team will also be offering shots on 322 sites this week, officials said Saturday.

“Millions of people in the United States and around the world have been safely vaccinated in the last eight months. Data show that vaccines are effective in preventing serious illnesses that can lead to hospitalization and death. “Overwhelmingly,” said Barbara Ferrer, director of public health. “But to really defeat the infection, you need to get a higher level of vaccination, especially among younger residents.”

LA County isn’t the only one fighting the Delta Variant grip. Communities scattered throughout the United States are dealing with spiral infections.

Florida reported 21,683 new cases of COVID-19 on Saturday. This is the highest daily total in the state since the start of the pandemic, as theme park resorts have once again begun to require visitors to wear masks indoors.

The state has become the new national epicenter of the virus, accounting for about one-fifth of all new cases in the United States.

Scientists studying the outbreak of large-scale COVID-19 in Massachusetts have concluded that vaccinated people with so-called breakthrough infections carry about the same amount of coronavirus. To conclude, it was an intriguing week for the US efforts to eradicate the coronavirus. The person who didn’t get the shot.

On Friday, health officials released details of the study. This was key to the decision by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention this week to recommend that vaccinated people wear masks indoors in parts of the United States where delta mutations are driving the proliferation of infections. rice field. The authors said the findings suggest that the CDC’s mask guidance needs to be extended to include the entire country, even outside the hotspots.

Findings can overturn past thoughts about how the disease spreads. Previously, infected vaccinated people were thought to have low levels of the virus and were less likely to infect others. However, the new data show that this is not the case for the delta variant.

Locally, Saturday’s new figures in LA County arrived the day after authorities reported 3,606 new cases of COVID-19. This is the largest one-day report since early February. According to the Los Angeles County Public Health Service, Saturday numbers bring a county-wide total from the pandemic to 1,300,313 cases and 24,682 deaths.

Test positive rates on Saturday ranged from 6.3% to 6.1% on Friday, higher than the 5.17% reported on Thursday, said Barbara Ferrer, director of public health.

Feller said Thursday that the rise in positive rates seen in recent weeks and the number of new cases are showing signs of slowing, hoping that the surge could level off. She said hospitalizations are expected to continue to increase as they traditionally increase following an increase in the overall number of cases.

As expected from the surge in COVID cases among the general public, the county’s homeless population has also seen a sharp increase in infections in recent weeks. In the week ending Sunday, 111 new cases were identified among the homeless, an increase of 21% over the previous week.

Throughout the pandemic, 7,588 COVID cases were reported among the homeless and 216 died.

As of July 27, of the 4.9 million fully vaccinated inhabitants, 10,656 were virus-positive at a rate of 0.22%, according to county statistics. The rate has increased by 63% since a week ago, but remains statistically low.

Of the vaccinated people, only 410 were hospitalized (0.008%) and only 35 died (0.0007%).

From January 1st to June 30th this year, 99.8% of people who died of COVID-19 were either unvaccinated or only partially vaccinated, Feller said.