L.A. County could run out of available hospital beds in weeks amid ‘alarming increases’ in coronavirus cases

Posted: Jun 29, 2020 / 04:04 PM PDT

Updated: Jun 29, 2020 / 10:39 PM PDT

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Los Angeles County health officials issued a dire warning Monday that conditions amid the COVID-19 pandemic are deteriorating rapidly and the highly contagious virus is spreading swiftly in the nation’s most populous county.

They said they are now faced with one of their biggest fears: that the reopening of L.A. County would coincide with sudden jumps in disease transmission that have the potential to overwhelm public and private hospitals.

L.A. County has long been the epicenter of the coronavirus in California — with nearly 98,000 confirmed cases and more than 3,300 deaths — but officials said Monday that the outbreak is worsening.

Barbara Ferrer, the director of public health for L.A. County, said that new data show “alarming increases in cases, positivity rates and hospitalization.”

With a predicted increase in hospitalizations, for the first time since the crisis seemed to ease locally, L.A. County is now projecting the possibility of running out of currently available hospital beds in two to three weeks.

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— Los Angeles Times (@latimes) June 29, 2020