Henry Mayo Newhall Hospital officials confirmed Tuesday five new positive COVID-19 diagnoses, bringing the total in the Santa Clarita Valley to at least 53 cases, as the county announced 548 new cases countywide.
Since the onset of the pandemic, Henry Mayo has received 28 positive test results for COVID-19, according to Patrick Moody, a spokesman for the hospital.
Henry Mayo has administered 225 tests: 172 have one back negative, and 25 are still pending results.
There are eight patients in the hospital, Moody added.
Los Angeles County Department of Public Health officials announced Tuesday 10 new deaths countywide in the last 24 hours due to COVID-19. Of those who died, four were under the age of 65 and one of those four was under the age of 41.
“While the majority of people who are passing do, in fact, have underlying health conditions, they all don’t,” said Barbara Ferrer, director of the L.A. County Department of Public Health, “which is a reminder of the ferociousness of this virus.”
Ferrer said one of the deaths reported Monday was the first health care worker in Los Angeles County to have died from COVID-19, and the person was over the age of 60.
The total number of deaths in Los Angeles County now stands at 54, with a 1.8% mortality rate countywide. Of those who died, 87% had underlying health conditions.
Ferrer also announced 548 new confirmed cases in the last 24 hours, bringing the total number of cases countywide to 3,011. This includes 111 cases in the city of Long Beach and 25 in the city of Pasadena.
Last Wednesday, the Department of Public Health had identified a total of 799 cases, meaning that the count has more than tripled since last week, Ferrer said.
Last week, 6,000 people were tested and, as of Tuesday, 19,000 people have now been tested countywide.
“The increase does in fact reflect the capacity to do more testing and allow us to identify more people that are positive for COVID-19,” said Ferrer. “But it also reflects, as I’ve noted in the past, if there are more infected people, there is a greater possibility of them infecting others.”
Of those who have tested positive, 594 cases have been hospitalized at some point, or roughly 20% of the confirmed cases. Of those, 173 are 55 years of age or older and 25% of the total hospitalized cases are in the ICU.
The county Department of Public Health is set to release the total number of cases for the entire Santa Clarita Valley, which includes cases diagnosed by private health care providers, later Tuesday afternoon.
The number of cases for the Santa Clarita Valley, broken down into region, are as follows, according to the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health numbers released at approximately 2:30 p.m. on Tuesday:
- City of Santa Clarita: 48
- Unincorporated – Castaic: 3
- Unincorporated – Acton: 0
- Unincorporated – Agua Dulce: 0
- Unincorporated – Canyon Country: “–”
- Unincorporated – Lake Hughes: 0
- Unincorporated – Newhall: 0
- Unincorporated – Placerita Canyon: 0
- Unincorporated – Sand Canyon: 0
- Unincorporated – Saugus: 0
- Unincorporated – Saugus/Canyon Country: 0
- Unincorporated – Stevenson Ranch: “–”
- Unincorporated – Val Verde: 0
- Unincorporated – Valencia: “–”
Anywhere there is a “ – ” means they could have between one and four cases, according to county DPH officials.
“This is done to protect patient privacy,” Bernard Tolliver, a Public Health spokesman, said in a previous Signal interview. “Once these locations have five or greater cases then that will be included. Locations that have zero will say ‘zero.’”
For all local coronavirus-related stories, visit signalscv.com/2020/03/covid-19-coverage-summary.
