“While hospitalizations and cases are still high, we are relieved to see decreases in both of these metrics,” Los Angeles County’s director of public health said today. “There has been a fairly steady decline in cases since July 23, which could signal the end of this current surge.”
The county entered the CDC’s “high” level of transmission two weeks ago, which was the start of the surveillance period for a masking mandate, which ended today. A key metric in the CDC’s assessment was the number of hospitalizations per 100,000 residents. For the past two weeks, it’s been over 10, which is the CDC threshold between high and medium. Today, Ferrer announced that the county had determined that it had fallen to 9.7 incomes per 100,000. But, this data is not official from CDC.
Ferrer explained that while the CDC still says income per 100,000 in LA remains at 11.7, the most recent local data shows it at 9.7.
As the county’s indoor numbers have dropped, Ferrer said, “We will stop the mandate of universal indoor masks.”
“We hope that the [hospital] admission rate remains below 10 for the next few days,” he said. “The clock is stopped [on a mask mandate] Right Now. I’m hesitant to call it a ‘pause’ because the data indicates we’re headed toward the CDC’s median level.” That would mean indoor masking would only be strongly recommended.
It should be noted, however, that the average 7-day test positivity rate continues to rise, at 16.6% today.
Earlier this week, the cities of Beverly Hills, El Segundo, Long Beach and Pasadena announced they would not implement a mandate. Long Beach and Pasadena have their own health departments that issue their own orders and therefore are not subject to the LA County mandate.
Los Angeles Covid Statistics by LACDPH