All Covid-19 patients in Los Angeles County hospitals are unvaccinated, officials say
https://www.cnn.com/us/live-news/co...s-07-14-21/h_7aa7a68517fa46006fbdeb22e3ddb7d6
Los Angeles County is seeing a surge in new Covid-19 cases, topping 1,000 for the fifth straight day on Wednesday, and though hospitalizations remain low, each admitted patient to a county hospital has been unvaccinated, officials said.
“To date, we have not had a patient admitted to a [Department of Health Services] hospital who has been fully vaccinated, with either the J&J, Pfizer or Moderna vaccine. Every single patient that we’ve admitted for Covid is not yet fully vaccinated,” County Health Services Director Dr. Christina Ghaly told the Board of Supervisors Tuesday.
Some context: The Los Angeles County Department of Health Services runs four hospitals, including those affiliated with University of California, Los Angeles and the University of Southern California, along with 19 healthcare centers throughout the region. There are currently about 400 Covid-19 patients in Los Angeles County hospitals.
Ghaly called the hospitalizations entirely preventable.
"At this point, this really is a preventable illness, a preventable infection, and the healthcare workers will continue doing everything they can to support the lives and health of the individuals that come in, but it's really been a very challenging year, and I think it's made all the more challenging because we see the suffering that these patients and their families are going through, and it's very preventable at this point in time," she said.
While still well below the spike in cases seen early this year, the increase in cases in Los Angeles is helping drive the state’s positivity rate up to 3%, a level not seen in the state since February.
Over 60% of California residents have been fully vaccinated against Covid-19. The percentage is slightly higher in Los Angeles County, but daily vaccination rates have been steadily declining over the past couple of months, according to data from the county health department.