LA's Coronavirus Case Rate Levels Off, Thwarting More Reopenings

LOS ANGELES, CA — Los Angeles County's weeks-long decline in coronavirus case rates stalled this week, thwarting the region's chance of further business reopenings within three weeks, health officials announced Tuesday.

County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer said she anticipated a continued leveling off of the county's rate of new cases, despite several weeks of significant drops, telling the Board of Supervisors the metrics likely "will not change significantly this week or next."

To advance to the yellow tier in the state's blueprint for reopening, the county's case rate would have to fall below 2 per 100,000 residents and remain there for two consecutive weeks. That means the earliest Los Angeles County could now qualify for a move would be three weeks — or four weeks if Ferrer's prediction about next week's numbers is accurate.

Though the county's case rate has plateaued at 3.1 new COVID-19 infections per 100,000 residents, it's still the lowest rate since the start of the pandemic last spring.

The news comes as Gov. Gavin Newsom announced plans to completely reopen California by June 15 provided coronavirus cases don't spike.

Los Angeles County, which largely drove the state's winter surge continues to enjoy a relatively low case rate. Local health officials are watching the trend closely, however. The concern is that Calfornia could be following a pattern seen around much of the country that started with steep declines in cases that levelled off before rising again. In places such as New York and Michigan, a new surge is being fueled by new variants of the coronavirus. Variants believed to be more contagious now make up the majority of cases found in Los Angeles.

Despite the California and United Kingdom variants now dominant in Los Angeles, the region may have an advantage over other parts of the country already facing a fourth surge. Namely, millions of residents have been vaccinated before the rate of transmission could climb up again.

And county health officials says vaccination rates should climb in upcoming weeks. Los Angeles County this week was allocated nearly 400,000 doses, its highest level to date. That figure doesn't include thousands more doses allocated directly to some providers in the county, such as pharmacies, large health care providers and the federally operated vaccination site at Cal State Los Angeles.

Speaking to the Board of Supervisors Tuesday, Ferrer reiterated that if the county receives an average of 576,000 doses per week -- which is roughly in line with projected allocations through the end of this month -- it will have capacity to vaccinate 80% of all residents 16 years and older in about 12 weeks, or roughly the end of June.

"We are now vaccinating at an accelerated pace," Ferrer said, noting that the number of innoculations has roughly doubled at four of the county's five mega sites.

"We still are not receiving enough doses for what we have capacity for," she told the board, saying that by the end of this week, the county will have capacity to administer 1 million doses a week.

The county has been working to ramp up its capacity to administer shots in anticipation of increasing supply.

In the meantime, the county remains firmly entrenched in the orange tier of the state's Blueprint for a Safer Economy, which governs business and recreational restrictions during the pandemic. The county officially entered the orange tier last week, but did not ease its health-order restrictions until Monday.

Advancing to the yellow tier — which would allow a further loosening of capacity restrictions at most businesses — originally required counties to have an average daily new case rate of less than 1 per 100,000 residents. That threshold, however, was eased Tuesday to less than 2 per 100,000 residents, thanks to the state meeting the goal of 4 million COVID vaccine doses administered in low-income communities hard hit by the pandemic.

The state updates the county-by-county statistics every Tuesday.

According to state figures, there were 552 people hospitalized due to COVID in Los Angeles County as of Tuesday, down from 568 on Monday. There were 138 people in intensive care, a drop from 144 on Monday.

Ferrer reported 23 new COVID-19 deaths on Tuesday, while Long Beach health officials announced three and Pasadena one, raising the countywide death toll since the pandemic began to 23,296.

Another 406 new cases were also reported by the county, while Long Beach added 21 and Pasadena three, lifting the cumulative total from throughout the pandemic to 1,222,802.

City News Service and Patch Staffer Paige Austin contributed to this report.