One year ago, Congress defunded public media. Now that we're 100% community funded, please become a sustaining member or increase your existing membership today.
LA County Could See 1,000 New COVID-19 Cases Per Day Next Week
COVID-19 testing is underway at the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health's laboratory. (Courtesy of the County of Los Angeles)
L.A. County announced Friday that three additional COVID-19 testing sites have come online. And as more testing happens, the number of confirmed cases is expected to jump.
The drive-up sites are in Redondo Beach, Pomona and Palmdale. People 65 or older with symptoms and other at risk groups are eligible for a nose or cheek swab.
Specimen collection operations like these are part of the reason there's been a significant increase in the amount of people tested. That number is at about 26,000 people now in the county.
“We were well under 50 tests a day when we started, we thought we were doing well when we were able to get capacity to up to two or three hundred tests a day,” said L.A. County Public Health Director Dr. Barbara Ferrer. “And now we’re testing over 7,000 people a day.”
Ferrer says the goal is to test 10,000 people per day. But that milestone will be accompanied by a bump in the number of cases, she said.
As early as next week, Ferrer expects to see as many as 1,000 new COVID-19 cases a day.
Sponsored message
GO DEEPER:
One year ago, Congress voted to defund public media, eliminating a critical $1.7 million from our budget every year going forward. But they couldn’t silence us, and we’re not going anywhere. LAist is now 100% community funded and that means we’re taking our future into our own hands and turning to you to keep local reporting strong.
You come to LAist because you want independent reporting and trustworthy local information. Our nonprofit newsroom doesn’t answer to shareholders looking to turn a profit. Instead, we answer to you and our communities. We are free to follow facts wherever they lead and to hold power to account without fear or favor. Our only loyalty is to our readers and listeners and our mission: to inform, engage, and strengthen Southern California’s communities.
If this story helped you, please become a monthly member today to help sustain this mission. It just takes 1 minute to donate below.
You come to LAist because you want independent reporting and trustworthy local information. Our nonprofit newsroom doesn’t answer to shareholders looking to turn a profit. Instead, we answer to you and our communities. We are free to follow facts wherever they lead and to hold power to account without fear or favor. Our only loyalty is to our readers and listeners and our mission: to inform, engage, and strengthen Southern California’s communities.
If this story helped you, please become a monthly member today to help sustain this mission. It just takes 1 minute to donate below.
Senior Vice President News, Editor in Chief
