Worsening Outbreak Could Cause Return To Stay-Home Orders

LOS ANGELES, CA — Halfway into a three-week shutdown of bars and dine-in restaurants in Los Angeles, the region remains teetering on the edge of further shutdowns.

Another 50 coronavirus deaths were reported in Los Angeles County, a sign that the death rate may be catching up with the spike in new cases that has largely been concentrated among the young. Also on Thursday, The World Health Organization acknowledged for the first time that coronavirus droplets could be airborne indoors, increasing the risk to people who spend time in poorly ventilated and crowded indoor settings. And Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti and Los Angeles County Public Health Department Director Barbara Ferrer both warned that further shutdowns could be ordered if the outbreak doesn't show signs of slowing in the coming weeks.

“If things get worse, that dial could move to red in this coming week or two. That would place us at the highest risk of infection, and we’d likely return to a mandated safer-at-home order," Garcetti said. "But, if things get better, we’ll see that dial back down to yellow, indicating we’re successfully flattening the curve again.”

The reopening of bars and in-person dining may be jeopardized by the worsening outbreak

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the federal government's top infectious disease expert, this week lumped bar closures with fundamental preventative measures such as wearing masks, washing hands and social distancing.

“When you are indoor ... in the crowded situation in the bar, that’s a perfect setup for the spread of infection,” Fauci said in an online roundtable with Sen. Doug Jones (D-Ala.).

Ferrer warned again Thursday that case numbers, positivity rates and hospitalizations are continuing to rise to levels not seen since the onset of the pandemic. Ferree said a return to Safer At Home orders is a possibility if the trend doesn't reverse.

"Nothing can be off the table in the pandemic," she said. "There's too much unknown and there's lots of things that could happen that could put us in much worse shape, including, you know, some serious mutations of this virus that make it more dangerous. So I would never be the person that's going to say, `absolutely, out of the question, we can never go back to Safer At Home.'

"There's just too much unknown here. There's a virus, there's a pandemic. A lot of what happens here also depends on what's happening in other places around the country, so we shouldn't really take any tools off the table," she said. "What I would like to say is, I hope we never have to go back to Safer At Home. I hope we do our job well ... all of us do our job well and we get back to what we know we can do, which is slow that curve."

The new deaths increased the county's overall death toll from the virus to 3,691.

Ferrer also reported another 1,777 coronavirus cases, while Long Beach added 254 more and Pasadena confirmed 14. Those new cases lifted the county's total confirmed cases since the start of the pandemic to 125,006.

The average daily percentage of people testing positive for the virus in the county over the past seven days stood at 9.2% as of Thursday, while the overall positivity rate from throughout the pandemic remained at about 9%. The seven-day positivity average remains above the 8.4% rate reported about a week ago, but it has slightly dipped in recent days, with the rate topping 11% earlier this week.

Most concerning in the figures was the number of people hospitalized due to the virus. As of Thursday, 2,037 people were hospitalized -- one of the highest, if not the highest, levels of the pandemic. In June, the average number of people hospitalized was averaging about 1,400.

"Our cases are rising, the rate of infection is increasing and the number of hospitalizations are up," Ferrer said. "These numbers are reminiscent of what we saw months ago at what we thought was going to be the height of the pandemic here in L.A. County."

She reiterated concerns expressed Wednesday that the increasing numbers of cases and hospitalizations could lead to spiking numbers of deaths in the coming weeks.

Ferrer noted Wednesday that while 93% of people who have died from the virus had underlying health conditions, the 7% of people who died and had no existing health issues should serve as a warning.

"When the numbers get as big as they are today, that 7% represents dozens and dozens of people who may have thought that they were at no risk for having serious illness and even dying from COVID-19, but unfortunately this virus can affect many, many different people."

On Thursday, she again warned that younger residents continue to drive the increasing numbers of infections, and those people can easily pass the infection to people more vulnerable to serious complications or death.

"Younger people infect everybody else," she said. "... They don't just get to choose, I'm only going to infect a low-risk person that I know is going to be able to tolerate COVID-19. That's not how it works. As a young person, you inadvertently unknowingly could be infecting people even in your age cohort who then go on and infect somebody else who's at risk and actually may even die."

City News Service and Patch Staffer Paige Austin contributed to this report.