Los Angeles Covid cases up 78% in the past four days, although hospitalizations show no signs of increasing

A week after Los Angeles lifted the latest Covid restrictions, Los Angeles officials are concerned about the spread of the more contagious BA.2 variant, with a higher incidence and expected school and religious holidays.

“Although explosions remain low in many sectors,” the country’s public health department said Friday, “Ramadan, Easter, Easter and spring break meetings could lead to more accidents and more explosions.”

The good news is that, despite the growing number of positive cases and tests, the new option and the recently lifted restrictions on hospitalization and mortality show no increase.

The 7-day positive result in the region is up 50% since Tuesday, from 0.8% to 1.2% today. Such a jump is noticeable for an average of 7 days, even though interest rates remain very low.

Cases have increased even more dramatically. On Tuesday, Los Angeles County announced 708 new cases. Today, that number is up 78% to 1,263 new cases, up from 1,088 yesterday.

“This increase in cases is likely due to the more easily transmitted BA.2 subtype, which continues to increase in Los Angeles County,” LADPH said in a statement.

The number of new cases in the country has increased rapidly this week, despite the decline in the number of daily tests. This is generally a strong indicator of increasing prevalence in the region. On Friday, the country tested around 110,000 people every 24 hours. Today that number has dropped to 90,000 tests per day.

Meanwhile, the BA.2 Omicron variant, estimated to be 10% more contagious than the already more contagious original Omicron, has become dominant in the region. City officials said Thursday that BA.2 represented 47% of all counties nationwide that had undergone special testing to identify COVID variants, but said the percentage was likely higher because the data reflected cases of the beginning of the year, two weeks. The latest figures from the CDC confirm this.

This week the Center’s Choice Ratio Monitoring Board showed that in a three-state region that includes California, Nevada and Arizona, BA.2 now accounts for 75 percent of all tests that are genomically sorted to determine causal variant. See the table below.

This week, Los Angeles District Director of Public Health Barbara Ferrer expressed some concern about the recent increase in school blasts. The country reported a total of 14 in the past week, including, for example, Ferrer called it “one of the biggest explosions we have had since the start of the pandemic, I believe, in the K-12 school.”

And beyond the size of this epidemic, Ferrer said, “we have tripled the number of new ones.” [school] Explosions this week. “

The increase is related to the prevalence of BA. 2.

But Ferrer noted that the test participation rate remains very low on school campuses, lower than the national one.

“So when you see an increase in explosions, it means there are more transmissions in schools than ever before,” he said, noting that with a more viral version and fewer levels of protection, there would be more transmissions.

“I know people hate these masks, but these masks really helped,” Ferrer said. “As we see more prevalence in schools, we need to look at this and not erase it, not say, ‘No, I will never wear these masks again.’ We will provide protective layers when you need them. “