Los Angeles County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer urged residents to stay home whenever possible and comply with physical distancing and face-covering guidelines as the total number of COVID-19 cases surpassed 100,000 on Monday.
“At this point, if you’re not part of the solution to slowing the spread, you’re ending up being part of the problem,” Ferrer said. “We do need to do these actions now and for the near future. I can’t stress enough what’s at stake at this moment.”
Ferrer reported a total of 2,903 new cases and 22 new deaths on Monday, making for a total of 100,772 cases and 3,326 deaths. Los Angeles remains the county with the most cases and hospitalizations in all of California.
For the past two months, LA County has reopened beaches, restaurants, hair salons, bars and other businesses. But with the rising number of cases and hospitalizations, LA County was ordered by the governor on Sunday to shut down its bars and nightclubs to help decrease the spread of the virus.
Ferrer said that while the county expected there to be an increase in cases and hospitalizations with the reopening of businesses, but health officials didn’t expect to see this “steep an increase this quickly.”
The county’s health services director, Christina Ghaly, also noted that “things have taken a turn for the worse” cautioned that if infections and hospitalizations continued to increase at this rate, the county’s hospitals and healthcare systems could become overburdened.
With the July 4 holiday nearing, Ferrer said she “strongly” advised against gatherings with friends or others outside of a person’s immediate household.
“This is going to be a different summer,” Ferrer said.