LA Records Highest Coronavirus Death Toll For Second Straight Day

LOS ANGELES, CA — For the second straight day, Los Angeles recorded the highest single day death toll since the start of the coronavirus pandemic. The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health announced 148 new deaths on Thursday, up from Wednesday's total of 145 deaths.

The county also confirmed 13,678 new coronavirus cases, and said 6,499 people are currently hospitalized. 20% of those people are in ICU, another record for the county.

As of December 24, the department had confirmed 677,299 cases of coronavirus throughout the pandemic, along with 9,299 deaths.

“We extend our deepest condolences to the many people across L.A. County who have lost a loved one to COVID-19. It is heartbreaking to report today nearly 150 more L.A. County residents died from COVID-19 leaving families grieving through the holiday season,” said Barbara Ferrer, PhD, MPH, MEd, Director of Public Health. “A person now dies every 10 minutes in L.A. County from COVID-19 - and since many of these deaths are preventable, our collective focus should be on doing right to save lives. I hope we can each find the strength and courage to take responsibility for each other's well-being. Follow the public health directives. These are the only tools that will work right now."

The continued climb in all categories has health officials on edge heading into Christmas weekend, fearing residents will again ignore warnings against gatherings and spark an even larger surge in infections, hospitalizations and deaths.

"Anyone who is willing to be honest with the facts and the timeline of the rising case counts and the reality that is bombarding our hospitals must accept that our collective behaviors as a community of Los Angeles County in the days around Thanksgiving directly led to our rising rates of hospitalizations and the rising deaths that we are now experiencing," county Health Services Director Dr. Christina Ghaly said Wednesday. "Well-intentioned desires to see family and friends that we haven't seen a awhile and to share time off over the holidays with those we love has resulted in more people getting very, very sick and has pushed our hospital system to the place it is today."

Hospitals have already been buckling under the dangerously high number of coronavirus patients requiring increased attention. According to Ghaly, 96% of the county's 70 emergency-room-equipped hospitals diverted ambulance traffic to other medical facilities at some point during the day on Tuesday due to overcrowding -- up from the normal average of 33% for this time of year.

The county's most current modeling estimates that one in every 95 residents who aren't hospitalized or in quarantine are infected with the virus and capable of spreading it. That's a slight improvement from last week, when the estimate was one in 80 residents. The transmission rate of the virus -- the average number of people every COVID patient infects with the virus -- was estimated at 1.11 on Wednesday, down slightly from 1.2 last week.

Still, officials caution that any transmission number above 1.0 means new cases will continue to climb.

"These rising cases will put even more strain on our already overburdened hospitals and the people who work in them," Ghaly said. "... New patient hospitalizations have continued to increase at a rate that we haven't seen before in the pandemic."

As pushback against health orders — especially the recent decision to re-close outdoor dining — continues to spread, Ghaly again stressed the necessity of urgent action to limit the virus' transmission and prevent more unnecessary deaths.

"This is a very false narrative and only leads to more destruction and suffering," she said. "We are all interdependent. What one person does and how they live their lives affect not just those in his or her immediate vicinity, but the contacts of those people and on and on. ... Your choices have consequences. They have consequences not just for themselves, they have consequences for every single person they interact with and many others that they will never know."

City News Service contributed to this report.