Los Angeles County public health officials on Friday reported 62 more deaths related to COVID-19 and 1,065 new cases of the coronavirus.
Long Beach, which has its own health department, reported an additional 42 cases, bringing the county’s total to 24,257 cases and 1,172 deaths.
“At the beginning of the month of April, I reported 79 deaths,” said Barbara Ferrer, the county health director. “So we have had devastating losses across our communities during the month of April.”
A total of 1,959 COVID-19 patients are in hospitals in L.A. County, with 27% of them in intensive care units and 17% on ventilators, Ferrer said, contrasting that with the beginning of April, when there were 900 people hospitalized.
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Statewide, California surpassed 2,000 deaths and 50,000 cases of the coronavirus, Gov. Gavin Newsom said Friday.
Still, he said, the number of COVID-19 patients in hospitals declined by 2% over the past day, and the number of those in intensive care remained flat.
Newsom has said it’s too soon to lift the state’s stay-at-home order, doubling down on that commitment Thursday and calling for the “hard close” of all Orange County beaches.
Local governments from Southern California to the Oregon border were preparing to stage acts of resistance Friday, fed up with six weeks of restrictions that have curbed their movements in an effort to stem the spread of the coronavirus.
