County officials provide updates, and answer questions regarding the COVID-19 pandemic for September 2nd, 2020.

The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health (Public Health), in consultation with the Board of Supervisors, has revised the Health Officer Order to allow for limited, on-campus operation for schools in L.A. County, as well as limited in-door operations of Hair Salons and Barbershops.

Beginning Monday, September 14, schools K-12 may offer in-school services for small cohorts of students with Individualized Education Plans (IEP), students requiring instruction for English as a Second Language (ESL) or students needing assessments or specialized in-school services, as long as the school is able to fully implement the Health Officer’s re-opening protocols.

Public Health will not be opening the waiver program for instruction of students in grades TK-6 as the department monitors the implementation of this effort to safely get students needing specialized in-school services back to school.

Hair salons and barbershops can re-open for indoor services at 25% occupancy provided they are in full compliance with the Health Officer’s protocols. The Order encourages these businesses to continue outdoor operations when possible, and to offer in-door operations for those services that cannot be provided outdoors. This Order is in effect beginning immediately.

All other current restrictions remain unchanged at this time.

“I want to extend my sincere sympathy to all our L.A. County residents that are grieving the loss of a family member, friend, co-worker or loved one. Your loss is not unnoticed, and we keep you in our hearts during these days of sadness,” said Barbara Ferrer, PhD, MPH, MEd, Director of Public Health. “Right now, a cautious and titrated reopening – with close monitoring of what happens to our data in the weeks to follow – is needed to ensure we are not experiencing significant spikes in cases, hospitalizations and deaths, as we saw in July after re-openings and holidays. As we slowly reopen sectors, we will watch closely how it is impacting community transmission. The longer our county’s 7-day average case rate remains above 7, as determined by the State, the longer we will remain in the State’s most restrictive Tier. In addition, once both our 7-day average case rate and 7-day average positivity percentage meet the criteria for Tier 2, they must stay there for at least two weeks before we can be moved to the next less restrictive Tier.”

Today, Public Health has confirmed 51 new deaths and 1,457 new cases of confirmed COVID-19. This brings the cumulative number of positive cases of COVID-19 across all areas of L.A. County to 243,935, and a total of 5,878 deaths. There are currently 1,048 hospitalized, of which 31% are confirmed cases in the ICU. Upon further investigation, 43 cases and two deaths reported earlier were not L.A. County residents.

Of the 50 new deaths reported today (excluding Long Beach and Pasadena), 22 people that passed away were over the age of 80, 15 people who died were between the ages of 65 and 79 years old, eight people who died were between the ages of 50 and 64 years old, three people that passed away were between the ages of 30 and 49 years old and two people that passed away were between the ages of 18 and 29 years old. Thirty-four people had underlying health conditions including 17 people that passed away were over the age of 80, 10 people who died were between the ages of 65 and 79 years old, six people who died were between the ages of 50 and 64 years old and one person that passed away was between the ages of 30 and 49 years old.

Ninety-two percent of the people who died from COVID-19 had underlying health conditions. Of those who died, information about race and ethnicity is available for 5,535 people (99 percent of the cases reported by Public Health); 51% of deaths occurred among Latino/Latinx residents, 23% among White residents, 15% among Asian residents, 10% among African American/Black residents, less than 1% among Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander residents and 1% among residents identifying with other races.

Testing results are available for 2,317,851 individuals with 10% of all people testing positive. At the outset of the pandemic, Public Health had grave concerns for people experiencing homelessness as this population was unable to just “stay at home” as we advised everyone to do in March. However, the data that we are seeing up to this point show these fears have not come to fruition. As of August 27th, 19,715 people experiencing homelessness have been tested (with 28,502 tests) with 1.87% positivity rate. As of last week, there have been 1,589 cases among people experiencing homelessness and 160 cases among people who work at shelters.

Since March, 448 people who were experiencing homelessness have been referred for isolation and 1,040 people have been referred for quarantine. There were early spikes in cases in April and May due to an outbreak at a large shelter and due to wider testing in shelters. Since then, the number has remained fairly stable. Tragically, we have seen deaths among both people who were experiencing homelessness as well as people who were working in shelters. To date, 41 people who were experiencing homelessness and 2 people who were working in shelters have passed away from COVID-19. And, in the last month, 15 people passed away, which may be related to the spikes in cases we saw across our county in the month of July.

The Reopening Protocols, COVID-19 Surveillance Interactive Dashboard, Roadmap to Recovery, Recovery Dashboard, and additional things you can do to protect yourself, your family and your community are on the Public Health website, www.publichealth.lacounty.gov.