COVID-19 Hospitalizations Continue to Break Records, Business Compliance is Essential to Save Lives

LOS ANGELES – The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health or Public Health has confirmed 86 new deaths and 11,194 new cases of COVID-19. This is the highest number of daily deaths reported since the summer surge. 

There are 4,403 people with COVID-19 now hospitalized with 21% of these people in the ICU.  Hospitalizations have increased 4-fold since Nov. 16.  The number of people hospitalized was 1,049 on November 16 and over 4,400 today.

According to the State, the Southern California Region has 1.7% ICU capacity remaining.

During this time of extraordinarily high number of cases and hospitalizations and increasing numbers of deaths, it is more important than ever that county businesses carefully follow the Public Health requirements and be fully compliant with the safeguards and modifications in the Health Officer Order and protocols.

From Nov. 29 through Dec. 6, a total of 20 citations were issued to businesses including restaurants, gyms, and indoor malls for noncompliance with Health Officer Orders. Since the end of August, a total of 433 citations have been issued. Public Health encourages L.A. County businesses to take the COVID-19 Safety Compliance Certification Program. The program provides business owners and employees the opportunity to take a free online training about COVID-19 infection control protocols and allows businesses to self-certify that they are fully implementing protocols in compliance with infection control and physical distancing requirements. To date, a total of 16,166 employees and employers have completed the training.

To date, Public Health identified 543,769 positive cases of COVID-19 across all areas of L.A. County and a total of 8,431 deaths.