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The dreaded post-Christmas spike in coronavirus cases appears to be materializing in Los Angeles County, with a new rise in cases as hospitals are already in crisis from the Thanksgiving surge.

Los Angeles County posted its third highest single-day total for coronavirus cases on New Year’s Day, reporting 19,063 cases. That means that over the last seven days, there has been an average of more than 16,000 new coronavirus cases a day reported in the county — about 12 times bigger than the comparable figure from Nov. 1 and the highest figure ever recorded.

The county had seen particularly aggressive growth in daily coronavirus cases in mid-December, but then saw new cases flatten over the last week and a half, generally adding on average 13,000 to 14,800 new cases a day.

The tally reported Friday pushed the average number of new daily coronavirus cases over the last week to 16,077 — precisely around the same time that epidemiologists warned that people infected around the Christmas holiday would begin to become infectious.

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