California coronavirus map3/24/2024 ![]() ![]() 5 to 11, unvaccinated Angelenos were five times likelier to get infected, 21 times more likely to require hospitalization and 18 times likelier to die. It’s unvaccinated residents who remain particularly exposed to the worst effects of COVID-19. The latest daily caseload, 6,509, is more than double the total reported Tuesday. Los Angeles County is experiencing a “staggeringly fast rise” in newly confirmed coronavirus cases, with more than 6,500 additional infections reported Wednesday alone, Ferrer said. The winter combination of Delta and Omicron is raising red flags in L.A. High rates of vaccination and booster shots are among the reasons why San Francisco health officials seem optimistic that a winter COVID-19 hospitalization surge can be weathered. The percentages are much lower in the Inland Empire and sections of the Central Valley and rural Northern California. ![]() In Los Angeles County, 66% of residents of all ages are fully vaccinated, according to county data. “Realistically, to avoid the worst of the scenarios, we need to work right now to increase vaccinations and booster uptake.”Īs of Tuesday, California had 3,589 people with COVID-19 in its hospitals.Įxperts say vaccination rates could prove key on what kind of damage Omicron does to some communities. County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer. across the state are far more than we ever want to see, it is more manageable than the alternatives,” said L.A. That would result in a statewide winter peak of 10,000 COVID-19 patients by late January - about half last winter’s surge and 20% worse than the summer Delta wave. In California, a hopeful scenario would be if Omicron’s disease severity is half of Delta’s and the state can double its booster uptake, raise its vaccination rate to 80% and lower the number of residents’ close contacts for the next month. That’s because, while Omicron is rapidly spreading, there also will be a relatively high percentage of people infected with the variant who will remain asymptomatic, and a lower percentage of newly infected people who will require hospitalization. In the coming days, COVID-19 hospitalizations will be a more relevant way to determine actions that local authorities may need to take, said Ali Mokdad, a professor of health metrics sciences at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. Science & Medicine What makes the Omicron variant spread so easily?Įarly research points to mutations in the spike protein. The hope is that California, which still has one of the lowest coronavirus case rates in the nation, will be better equipped to handle an Omicron surge than other states that were still reeling from the Delta surge when Omicron started spreading. Even if a lower percentage of them need hospital care, if there are so many more people who are suddenly infected, that could result in strained hospital systems and, in some areas, overwhelm them, especially in areas with low vaccination rates. ![]() The ultra-contagious nature of Omicron means that an extraordinarily high number of people could get infected simultaneously. The biggest worry is that Omicron could spread so fast that some hospitals could still be overwhelmed. Eric Topol, director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute in La Jolla. But while hospitals in Denmark and South Africa are not being overwhelmed, the healthcare system “is having a tough time in England - because they were already working so hard with Delta, kind of like parts of our country,” said Dr. has other challenges, with a lower rate of vaccination than Britain or Denmark. won’t be as deadly as last year’s devastating surge. That raises the possibility that this winter in the U.S. There’s also no evidence that people who are vaccinated and have received a booster shot are getting severely ill with Omicron, unless they have a significantly weakened immune system. But there are some hints of optimism among early data from England, Scotland, Denmark and South Africa, which suggested that an Omicron infection resulted in a 40% to 70% reduced need for hospitalization compared with the Delta variant. California’s winter COVID-19 surge intensified Wednesday, with new coronavirus cases spiking dramatically along with confirmed cases of the Omicron strain, which officials expect will become dominant within weeks in some parts of the state and bring new challenges to the healthcare system.īecause Omicron is so easily transmissible, it is spreading with unprecedented speed.
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