Photo: FREDERIC J. BROWN / AFP / Getty Images
As a ray of hope, the news is received that in Los Angeles County hospitalizations by covid- have been decreasing for seven consecutive days, according to state figures.
For Monday 3 were confirmed, 720 hospitalized. On Sunday there were 3,852 and on Saturday 3,998.
On the other hand, the number of patients in intensive care had 759 persons. Authorities said that some of these patients probably entered the hospital for other reasons and there they discovered that they had the covid-10 after taking the mandatory test.
On Monday they reported 40 deaths associated with covid-19 of which 29 were older than 65 years and 26 had pre-existing conditions.
Regarding positive tests, 10,715. The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health (DPH) indicated that the number of cases and deaths likely reflects reporting delays over the weekend.
The county’s rolling average rate of people who have tested positive for the virus continued to fall, reaching 9.1%, down from 9.6% on Saturday and the 01.3% Friday.
Dr. Ilan Shapiro, director of medical affairs and chief health and wellness correspondent for AltaMed clinics, said in his Vital Conversations virtual message that the numbers reveal that we are reaching the peak of infections.
“That is very good for us because we are reaching a point where there is no more up, but it took us almost two months to go up and it will take us about two more months to go down”, he indicated.
Shapiro added that if everything continues as it is and covid-19 continues to behave in the same way, probably by March or April we will be calmer.
Businesses follow directions
DPH also announced that business sectors are complying with the necessary requirements to keep employees and customers safe during the pandemic.
Between the 21 and the 27 of January, the DPH made more than 1,400 site inspections to assess mask and immunization compliance at a variety of Los Angeles County businesses.
It was reported a compliance of near or above 90% among restaurants, bars, nightclubs, lounges, breweries, food markets, hotels and pla Food manufacturing outlets for customers wearing masks, employees wearing enhanced face coverings, and vaccination verification where applicable.
Compliance with use of masks by customers and employees was around 80% in gyms, and compliance of the use of face masks by employees in garment manufacturers was 74%.
DPH Director Bárbara Ferrer said it is encouraging to see the high compliance rates.
“With thousands of new infected people every day and a variant circulating that evades some of the protection of our vaccine, the use of masks, when in close contact with others, remains an important layer of protection, especially for essential workers”, said Ferrer.
The director pointed out that n Sunday, many people were seen without masks during the Rams’ championship game against the 49ers, that doesn’t mean that’s a good reason to end the requirement.
“That would be like removing speed limits because many drivers ignore them and feel that they can assess for themselves the safe speed for their trip,” said Ferrer.
“At some point in the near future, transmission will be significantly lower and we won’t need to wear our masks everywhere…, and to get there as quickly as possible, we all need to do our best to put sensible protections in place to keep us and ourselves safe.” those around us”.
The importance of home tests and masks
Dr. Shapiro stressed that there should be no lower their guard and it is important that people who have not obtained their covid tests-19 homemade by mail, who ask for them to have them at home. These are being granted by the federal government if you visit the page https://www.covidtests.gov/
Asked that people follow the instructions to the letter when taking the exam since each test is different.
“There are tests that come with a piece of paper and there are others that come with a plastic, both work perfectly well”, said Shapiro. “Don’t be scared The most important thing is to make sure you read the instructions.”
He also indicated that it is now advisable to use surgical masks, the N95 or KN400 to be much more protected than fabric ones.
“The problem with the cloth ones is that they have very large little holes and the virus got in there,” said Shapiro.
There are several places that are already providing the N masks 95 for free, among them Walgreens, CVS and Walmart pharmacies. It is expected that they will soon arrive at all community clinics.