COVID-19
Updated
Published
December 21, 2020 4:30 PM
An employee scans items behind a protective shield at a grocery store in in Little Tokyo. (Chava Sanchez/ LAist)
L.A. County Public Health officials today reported more than 11,000 new cases of COVID-19, with hospitalizations soaring 500% in recent days.
Among the places seeing spikes in people testing positive: grocery stores.
An L.A. Times analysis of
the county’s websitefound outbreaks reported in December at three Trader Joe’s locations, two Whole Foods Market stores, three Sprouts Farmers Market branches and several smaller grocery chains.
Those getting sick are mostly essential workers who must report every day underscoring the push by some cities to offer hazard or hero pay for grocery store employees. For people who are shopping, the high numbers beg the question: Just how safe is it to go shopping at the market?
Wealthy LA Patients Offering Top Dollar to Private Doctors for Vaccine By Natalie Brunell Beverly Hills PUBLISHED 9:45 AM ET Dec. 20, 2020 PUBLISHED 9:45 AM EST Dec. 20, 2020
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BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. The FDA on Friday night approved a second COVID-19 vaccine for emergency use, and in the short time since, concierge physician Dr. Scott Braunstein has been flooded with calls from patients eager to better understand the vaccines and how to get in line for a shot.
“People are scared, and people feel like their life is at stake,” said Dr. Braunstein. “We have had patients inquire when we will be able to procure the vaccine, and we don’t currently have a time table.”
Mayor Eric Garcetti said hospital officials are telling him and his staff that if Los Angeles continues on its upward trend of COVID-19 hospitalizations through Christmas, the medical facilities will go under.
Meanwhile, the four new cases of MIS-C brings the total cases in L.A. County to 49. All 49 children diagnosed with the rare disease were hospitalized. Last week, the county confirmed one child died from MIS-C, the first such death in the county.
In late October, Los Angeles County health officials reported a total of 43 known cases locally.
The impact of the virus surge on the emergency medical system was made clear Thursday morning, when the state announced that the 11-county Southern California region had formally reached zero capacity in intensive-care units.
LA County surpasses 5K COVID-19 hospitalizations for first time, reports 4 new cases of MIS-C in kids
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Los Angeles County broke its record for the number of people currently hospitalized for COVID-19, reporting more than 5,000 on Friday.
The county announced a total of 5,100 hospitalizations, along with 96 new deaths and 16,504 additional cases of COVID-19. Four additional cases of the coronavirus-linked multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children, known as MIS-C, were also reported.
Of the people currently hospitalized, 20% of them are in the ICU. Since Monday, L.A. County has reported more than 71,000 new COVID-19 cases; an acceleration of cases never seen before in our community, L.A. County Department of Public Health said. As case numbers continue to surge, the total number of individuals who will become seriously ill or pass away will also increase.
RETAIL By Andrew Asch | Thursday, December 17, 2020
At the beginning of the year, it was predicted that the COVID-19 pandemic and United States politics were going to have an effect on retail in 2020, but there was no sense that it was going be a big shake-up.
A forecast released Feb. 26 by the
National Retail Federation said that good times were going to roll in 2020. “The nation’s record-long economic expansion is continuing, and consumers remain the drivers of that expansion,” NRF President and CEO Matthew Shay said. The prominent trade group noted that retail sales would rise 3.5 percent to 4.1 percent during the year.