Public Health Recommends Testing for Individuals Possibly Exposed to COVID-19 and Closely Monitors Data After Labor Day Weekend

The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health (Public Health) Sept. 9, has confirmed 61 new deaths and 671 new cases of confirmed COVID-19. The high number of new deaths are from a backlog of reports received from over the weekend, and the low number of new cases reflect reduced testing due to the excessive heat.

Public Health is carefully monitoring data over the next couple of weeks to see the impact of the holiday weekend on the transmission of the virus across County communities and recommends testing for individuals possibly exposed to COVID-19.

If you were potentially exposed to COVID-19 over the holiday weekend, you are encouraged to get tested.  For example, if you were in a crowded area this weekend and people were not wearing cloth face coverings, you should get tested.  If you were around someone who was feeling sick, you should get tested.  And if you were with someone who has tested positive for the virus, even if they never felt sick, you should get tested.  Testing sites are open and appointments are available. 

Just over two weeks after Independence Day, the County experienced increases in cases, hospitalizations and deaths. For example, the 7-day average of daily reported COVID-19 cases around July 4 was about 2,200 cases per day, but two weeks later the number of new cases increased to over 3,100.  

In July, the County saw the steepest increases in hospitalizations, where the average was over 2100 hospitalizations per day; the most significant peaks were two to three weeks after the July 4 holiday.  This past month however, daily hospitalizations have dropped back to an average of under 1000 hospitalizations a day, similar to the numbers in early April. Currently, there are 936 people who are confirmed cases currently hospitalized and 33% of these people are in the ICU. 

The 7-day average of daily deaths before July 4 was around 30 deaths per day, and tragically, 22 days after the July 4 holiday, the number of deaths climbed up to 44 deaths per day.

To date, Public Health has identified 249,859 positive cases of COVID-19 across all areas of L.A. County, and a total of 6,090 deaths. Testing results are available for nearly 2,393,000 individuals with 10% of all people testing positive.