LOS ANGELES – Los Angeles County logged 27 more COVID-19 deaths over a three-day period ending Monday, along with more than 2,500 new cases.
County Department of Public Health figures reported 10 deaths each on Saturday and Sunday, along with seven on Monday. The county no longer releases COVID figures on weekends.
The new fatalities gave the county an overall death toll from throughout the pandemic of 33,975.
Another 2,540 COVID infections were also reported over the three-day period — 1,171 from Saturday, 776 on Sunday and 593 Monday.
The new cases gave the county a cumulative total of 3,488,288. The daily number of new cases is believed to represent an undercount of actual COVID activity in the county, since many people now rely on at-home tests without reporting the results to the county.
Updated COVID-related hospitalizations numbers were not immediately available. As of Saturday, there were 365 COVID-positive patients in county hospitals, with 43 of them being treated in intensive care.
County officials have said that roughly 40% of COVID-positive hospital patients were admitted specifically for COVID-19, while the others were hospitalized for other reasons but tested positive upon admission.
The seven-day average daily rate of people testing positive for the virus in the county was 3.9% as of Monday, according to the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health.
Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer told reporters Thursday that the county has seen slight upticks over the past week in some virus-tracking metrics, most notably the weekly infection rate, after months of steady declines. She said the increases were not an immediate cause for concern, but officials plan to closely monitor the trends heading into cooler winter months, which have led to surges in cases the past two years.
