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LOS ANGELES (CBSLA) — The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health Thursday reported 19,719 new COVID-19 cases and 218 additional fatalities, bringing countywide totals to 871,404 cases and 11,545 deaths.
An emergency medical technician directs an ambulance outside the emergency room of the East Los Angeles Doctors Hospital Jan. 6. (Photo by Bing Guan/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
“There are just too many people spreading the virus, too many people sick and hospitalized and each person that dies is one too many,” Dr. Barbara Ferrer, county public health director, said.
Health officials also announced there were 8,098 COVID-19 patients hospitalized, 20% of whom were being treated in intensive care units. Since Jan. 3, the number of patients hospitalized has increased by more than 550 people.
Officials also called on businesses to implement all safety measures and business protocols to prevent COVID-19 transmission among staff, customers and residents.
“Everyone in L.A. County, businesses and residents, needs to follow the rules if there is any chance we can get out of this surge by the end of the month,” Ferrer said. “Every day we report a large number of people newly infected with COVID-19, it is like a reset on the clock for when we can get back to our recovery journey.”
Between Dec. 6, 2020 and Jan. 3, the health department issued a total of 143 citations for businesses for not being in compliance with local health orders. Among those businesses cited were restaurants, gyms, personal care salons, hair salons/barbershops, places of worship and shopping malls.
Since the end of August, a total of 526 citations have been issued, the department said.
With testing results available for nearly 4,890,000 individuals, the county’s overall positivity rate was 17%. The daily test positivity rate Thursday was 20.4%.
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