Los Angeles County public health officials on Sunday recorded 546 new cases of the coronavirus and 10 related deaths amid signs viral transmission was continuing to decrease.
Both numbers are an undercount because there are reporting delays on weekends, officials said. Still, they welcomed the encouraging trend of declining case rates, hospitalizations and deaths.
There were 470 COVID-19 patients in L.A. County hospitals as of Saturday, a drop of nearly 28% from two weeks before, when there were 647, officials said.
Statewide, there were 1,799 patients hospitalized with COVID-19, a decline of about 22% from two weeks before.
California has also observed a dramatic slowing of the average number of deaths being reported daily. In recent days, California has reported an average of 105 to 120 COVID-19 deaths a day — the lowest such number reported since the autumn-and-winter wave began. At its worst, in late January, California was recording as many as 562 deaths a day, on average, over a seven-day period.
