Los Angeles sees fourth week of declining hospitalizations

Coronavirus hospitalizations in Los Angeles decreased for the fourth straight week as the county appears to be making its way out of its deadliest wave of the pandemic yet. 

As of Wednesday, the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health recorded 6,213 hospitalizations due to COVID-19, down from a high of 8,098 recorded on Jan. 5.

However, as first noted by the Los Angeles Times Thursday, current hospitalizations in the county remain much higher than the summer’s peak of 2,232 hospitalized. 

According to the New York Times coronavirus database, Los Angeles has had an average of more than 7,600 new coronavirus infections per day over the past week. 

The county recorded more than 6,900 new cases on Wednesday alone, bringing the infection total to nearly 1.1 million. 

Los Angeles continues to remain the highest coronavirus-infected county in the U.S., followed by Arizona’s Maricopa County and Illinois’s Cook County, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. 

Experts predict coronavirus-related deaths will remain high in the coming weeks. On Wednesday, there were 307 deaths due to COVID-19 recorded in Los Angeles County, with a total of 15,897 fatalities since the pandemic first hit.

The Los Angeles Times on Thursday noted that while hospitals in the county are still under pressure amid the pandemic, no hospitals are currently in a state of internal disaster, as some had been weeks ago, and no hospitals have been forced to formally declare to county officials they were providing “crisis standards of care,” meaning that doctors would have to decide which patients would receive the most extensive lifesaving care over others. 

Christina Ghaly, the L.A. County health services director, said Tuesday that coronavirus numbers are “absolutely heading in the right direction,” according to the Los Angeles Times.