Los Angeles County has officially hit one million coronavirus cases since the beginning of the pandemic.
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Los Angeles County hit a record of 1,003,923 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 13,741 deaths as of Saturday. Public Health Director Dr. Barbara Ferrer said in a statement that the new COVID-19 variant is posing a danger to the county’s healthcare system since there are over 7,500 hospitalizations. She writes, “The presence of the U.K. variant in Los Angeles County is troubling, as our healthcare system is already severely strained with more than 7,500 people currently hospitalized. Our community is bearing the brunt of the winter surge, experiencing huge numbers of cases, hospitalizations, and deaths, five-times what we experienced over the summer.”
The state of California currently has 2.9 million confirmed cases and Ferrer says officials are planning to enforce stricter restrictions for businesses, schools, and others if the numbers continue to increase.
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Officials are also concerned that the new variant may become more dominant in March and it has been detected in San Bernandino County and San Diego.
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SOURCE: NBC News