With infections nonetheless surging, Los Angeles County’s cumulative variety of Covid circumstances all through the pandemic surpassed the two million mark at present, with 43,582 new circumstances confirmed. These new circumstances lifted the county’s cumulative case complete to 2,010,964 for the reason that pandemic started. Day by day circumstances within the county set an all-time excessive on Sunday at 45,584.

One other 13 deaths have been additionally confirmed, giving the county an general demise toll of 27,798.

The variety of Covid-positive sufferers in county hospitals additionally continued an unnerving rise, reaching 3,472, based on state figures. That was up from 3,364 on Sunday. The variety of hospitalized sufferers being handled in intensive care has additionally begun to rise, going from 435 on Sunday to 482 on Monday.

The variety of hospitalized Covid-positive sufferers has not been this excessive since February of final yr, throughout a extreme winter surge that at one level pushed the affected person quantity above 8,000. A state ensemble forecast launched at present confirmed the variety of Covid-related hospitalizations in California peaking late this month at 30,000. That’s greater than 30% increased than the earlier file set final winter.

“With surging transmission and quickly rising circumstances and hospitalizations, our already understaffed well being care suppliers are below monumental pressure as they attempt to care for therefore many COVID contaminated folks, together with these with delicate sickness who’re on the lookout for assist and assist, with the unintended consequence of compromising response capability throughout your complete system,” county Public Well being Director Barbara Ferrer stated in an announcement.

“As a result of excessive neighborhood transmission has the inevitable affect of accelerating demand for well being care companies, the easiest way to guard well being care personnel and our capability to take care of each these with Covid and non-Covid sickness, is to double-down on decreasing transmission.”

The county Division of Public Well being famous, nonetheless, {that a} majority of COVID hospitalizations are occurring amongst individuals who have been initially admitted for one more purpose, and solely realized that they had the virus after they have been examined upon admission.

For the week ending Dec. 26, 55% of Covid-positive hospital sufferers had been admitted for a unique purpose — indicating that whereas they have been contaminated with Covid, they weren’t experiencing extreme virus signs.

County well being officers burdened, nonetheless, that unvaccinated folks stay 21 occasions extra more likely to wind up hospitalized with COVID than vaccinated folks.

The present surge in circumstances in being pushed by the extremely transmissible Omicron variant of the virus.

“Whereas it’s true that Omicron is rather more infectious than earlier Covid strains, there are lots of efficient methods obtainable for decreasing transmission dangers over the following few weeks,” Ferrer stated. “Gatherings must also be postponed for a couple of weeks, particularly if there are members who aren’t totally vaccinated, and everybody can not check earlier than getting collectively. Lastly, upgrading masks to those who present a greater barrier towards virus particles is a commonsense step that will increase our personal safety together with these round us.”

The county’s rolling common price of individuals testing constructive for the virus was 21.4% as of Monday, up from 20.6% Sunday and 20.9% Saturday after per week of trending downward. The speed was lower than 1% in November.

The testing-positivity price, nonetheless, could also be artificially low as a result of quantity of people that use take-home assessments and don’t report the outcomes, based on officers.

Total, 67% of eligible county residents are totally vaccinated.

Metropolis Information Service contributed to this report.