Why so many covid 19 cases and deaths in LA County (Los Angeles: fit in, dining)

[CA4Now]

Los Angeles County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer noted recently that “emerging variants and subvariants of the virus (BQ.1 and BQ.1.1.) Like BA.5, the two have played a large role in driving past surges.”

“We ought to prepare for the possibility of another winter surge. We want to be realistic because every COVID surge brings additional risk,” she said Thursday. “However, we’re also optimistic because we have powerful tools, including therapeutics and the new bivalent boosters, that can blunt the impact.”

In L.A. County, coronavirus cases are no longer declining at the rate seen over the summer and appear to have plateaued. For the seven-day period that ended Monday, L.A. County was averaging 979 cases a day, a 7% increase from the prior week.

L.A. County’s death rate has remained largely stable for the last month, averaging 65 to 84 COVID-19 deaths per week.

https://www.latimes.com/california/s...s-bq1-bq11-ba5

[goodheathen]

Nope.

Davis said the county is currently reporting about 1,500 new cases per day, up from 1,300 per day a week ago and up 52% since Nov. 1. He noted that the reported cases only represent a portion of actual infections occurring in the county, since many residents rely on at-home tests that are not reported to health officials, while many more don't get tested at all.

Average daily COVID-related hospital admissions are averaging 97 per day, up 26% from 77 per day last week, and a 54% jump since Nov. 1, Davis said.

From an article urging the public to wear masks in indoor spaces.
https://abc7.com/covid-19-indoor-mas...alth/12465034/
Which I saw many people doing yesterday in a waiting room and on public transportation. I say duh, it's very easy to do.

[skyway31]

Originally Posted by goodheathen

Nope.



From an article urging the public to wear masks in indoor spaces.
https://abc7.com/covid-19-indoor-mas...alth/12465034/
Which I saw many people doing yesterday in a waiting room and on public transportation. I say duh, it's very easy to do.

It's compelled political speech. It says "I support the equity revolution" and "I hate the people who didn't want to wear masks when I thought they should." Why there continues to be this perverse obsession with forcing people to wear (and businesses to enforce) something on their faces that they do not want to wear, and that has not been demonstrated to be effective through randomized control trials, is beyond many of us completely. If you want to wear a mask, knock yourself out and wear it 24/7. Just stop with the perverse obsession with trying to force others to wear one against their will.

[goodheathen]

An end to the pandemic is worth almost anything, and clearly leaving things up to personal choice is a failure. I never depicted myself as "liberal" or "live and let live." Furthermore, there's an ethical obligation to mandate effective masks in healthcare settings, due to the importance of operations and the vulnerable people those settings attract. It would be good to know how much the virus is spreading within local hospitals. I didn't say masks would make enough of a difference.

[CA4Now]

Originally Posted by skyway31

Why there continues to be this perverse obsession with forcing people to wear...something on their faces that they do not want to wear, and that has not been demonstrated to be effective through randomized control trials, is beyond many of us completely.

LOL... randomized control trials?

[CA4Now]

Amid a sustained rise in coronavirus transmission, Los Angeles County is once again strongly recommending wearing a mask in indoor public spaces.

The daily number of newly reported cases has jumped almost 70% from a month ago, though case rates are still well shy of previous waves and officials continue to tout the benefits of available vaccines and therapeutics in warding off the worst COVID-19 has to offer.

However, the recent rise prompted the county to strengthen its call for indoor masking — from saying the practice is a matter of individual preference to advising it.

“Indoor masking is, as it has been in the past during times of elevated transmission, strongly recommended for all individuals,” county health officer Dr. Muntu Davis said Thursday (11/17).

Specifically, the county now encourages individuals to wear a well-fitting, high-quality mask in public indoor spaces; when aboard public transit; in correctional and detention facilities; and in homeless and emergency shelters.

https://www.latimes.com/california/s...-covid-masking

[skyway31]

Originally Posted by goodheathen

An end to the pandemic is worth almost anything, and clearly leaving things up to personal choice is a failure. I never depicted myself as "liberal" or "live and let live." Furthermore, there's an ethical obligation to mandate effective masks in healthcare settings, due to the importance of operations and the vulnerable people those settings attract. It would be good to know how much the virus is spreading within local hospitals. I didn't say masks would make enough of a difference.

What, exactly, constitutes an "end to the pandemic"? What is the evidence that this is attainable?

[goodheathen]

Originally Posted by skyway31

What, exactly, constitutes an "end to the pandemic"? What is the evidence that this is attainable?

https://www.publichealth.columbia.ed...re-differences

I consider WHO neutral enough to call an end to the pandemic when it probably is over.

And all pandemics end and in most of our lifetimes, I think AIDS is the only pandemic to last more than a few years.

We have the tools - and I don't mean just Paxlovid. It's a matter of imposing measures, including effective masks. When Los Angeles can get it under control (less than epidemic and/or with only a tiny percentage of cases causing much short- or long-term harm), every other part of this country can.

[CA4Now]

Originally Posted by goodheathen

all pandemics end and in most of our lifetimes, I think AIDS is the only pandemic to last more than a few years.

Coronavirus Today: How past pandemics came to an end:
https://www.city-data.com/forum/64328267-post12350.html

[skyway31]

Originally Posted by goodheathen

https://www.publichealth.columbia.ed...re-differences

I consider WHO neutral enough to call an end to the pandemic when it probably is over.

And all pandemics end and in most of our lifetimes, I think AIDS is the only pandemic to last more than a few years.

We have the tools - and I don't mean just Paxlovid. It's a matter of imposing measures, including effective masks. When Los Angeles can get it under control (less than epidemic and/or with only a tiny percentage of cases causing much short- or long-term harm), every other part of this country can.

There are no metrics provided which indicate an end. And, there's no reason to believe we will ever reach the point where there are no Covid infections. There's just the attention paid-or not paid- to case rates that keep it "alive" in some sense. (I'd argue, like the President has, that the end has already arrived.)

As I've pointed out before, masks and other disciplinary measures proved to be failures in California from November 2020-January 2021. The state had the most severe lockdowns and mask mandates with enforcement (the small city of Hermosa Beach literally paid people to walk the streets and strand along the beach to ticket people for not wearing masks!). The state, Los Angeles county in particular, proceeded to see the most catastrophic increase in cases, hospitalizations and deaths of anywhere in the country, anyway. And that was with a variant believed to be about 1/18 as transmissible as what's currently floating around. If the closures, cancellations, prohibitions and mask mandates didn't stop the huge wave at the end of 2020, we can be certain they wouldn't stop infections with variants eighteen times more transmissible, either. And all of that is to be considered even without getting into the costs and downsides of such disciplinary measures, as well as the deeply unethical abuse of "state of emergency" power in subverting democracy and democratic rights.