Last week, the average daily number of new cases in the 7-day county was 878. Until yesterday, the county had an average of more than 1,000 new Covid cases a day. Increasing even more than daily case numbers is the average daily rate of 7-day virus-positive cases, a data point that is considered a more accurate indication of spread because, in addition to average, it represents the rise and fall of the test. numbers. That percentage was stable below 1%, but rose to 1.7% on Thursday and reached 2.4% on Friday. The percentage is still low overall, but more than double what it was a week ago and about three times what it was two weeks ago. This is a big increase for a number that is an average of 7 days. The growing number of cases has not yet translated into a sharp rise in hospitalizations and deaths, which optimists continue to point out as the region struggles to return to normal after the Omicron winter wave. The number of Covid-positive hospital patients in Los Angeles County has indeed plummeted today and is trending in that direction. Last Friday, the number of hospitalized patients with Covid was 275. Today, the number rose to 228. That is a decrease of 17% in one week. Of those patients, 31 were in the intensive care unit, up from 32 on Thursday. Another 13 virus-related deaths were also reported on Friday. BA.2 subtype, a more contagious offshoot of the Omicron variant that caused winter outbreaks, is now the dominant strain of the virus in the county, according to public health officials. According to the latest data, 67% of new infections, but these data are more than two weeks old, so the variant is probably a much higher percentage of new cases so far. There has been speculation that BA.2, while more contagious, is also less contagious. In some areas, the increase in BA.2-related cases was not followed by an increase in hospitalizations and deaths. This difference from the Omicron winter wave is a cause for restrained optimism. But it is still too early to call an all-clear in BA.2. Throughout the pandemic, outbreaks of hospitalizations generally followed increases in daily cases by about 2 weeks. Part of BA.2’s increased ability to infect humans is thought to be a shorter incubation period, which means that hospitalizations increase earlier, by 10-14 days. So since the number of cases started to increase significantly only last week, any subsequent increase in hospitalizations would most likely occur at the end of next week or the last week of April. Indeed, while some regions appear to have avoided increasing hospitalizations, the United Kingdom – which often heralds trends in the state – has recently seen an increase in both hospitalizations and deaths. Closer to home, New York has begun to see a steady increase in hospitalizations following an increase in infections and positive test results. The average 7-day hospital stay in the state was about 2,000 at the end of March, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. It was over 5,600 on Wednesday, the most recent day for which data is available. A variable in the mix is whether daily trials, which are at one of the lowest amps in about a month, accurately record the current wave of new cases. The difference between the rose in the mean 7-day test positivity and the mean 7-day case numbers seems to support this suspicion. In addition, a new state study shows that the number of people in Los Angeles County infected with Covid-19 during the pandemic is much higher than the number confirmed by standard tests. This is largely due to the number of people who never developed symptoms and thus were never tested, or who could not access the tests or who tested positive at home and never reported the results. The City News Service contributed to this report.
