L.A. County health officials on Sunday confirmed 423 new cases of coronavirus and 20 deaths. There are currently 792 people hospitalized with COVID-19, and 27% of them are in an ICU.
Today’s update brings the total number of cases to 1,214,178, and deaths to 22,797.
Numbers reported over the weekend are sometimes low, however, because not all hospitals report numbers on Saturdays and Sundays.
As of last Monday, L.A. County officially moved into the red tier of reopening, thanks to the decrease in cases. Now, officials believe the region may move into the orange tier soon. The county reports that more than 3.2 million Angelenos have received a first dose of the vaccine, and more than one million have received a second dose.
However, L.A. County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer is still advising caution. When announcing that L.A. could soon enter the orange tier, she emphasized that the virus can still spread.
“What I want to go back to, with a note of caution, is we have to keep our numbers going down,” she said. “We can't have any surge in case numbers for these three weeks [if we want to move into the next tier]."
L.A. County is expecting about 280,000 doses of the vaccine this week, most of which will be reserved for people scheduled for their second dose.
Gov. Gavin Newsom on Friday said he expects to open vaccine eligibility to everyone in the state within the next six weeks.
