As the number of cases within the Santa Clarita Valley grew by 54 in the last day, Henry Mayo Newhall Hospital officials announced Wednesday a seventh death related to COVID-19 at the hospital.
Public Health officials reported Wednesday the SCV totals include cases associated with an outbreak at the Pitchess Detention Facility, but due to reporting delays, numbers may not align with the community numbers. County officials did not have the separate totals available as of this story’s publication.
It remains unclear how many of the new cases reported Wednesday, which would be the SCV’s highest single-day spike in cases, are associated with Pitchess, as the Los Angeles County Public Health Department numbers for the jail have not been updated since Sunday.
The death at Henry Mayo, according to hospital spokesman Patrick Moody, occurred Tuesday. Further information about the patient, including age, residency and past medical history, was not provided by the hospital due to patient privacy policy.
The sixth death was reported a week ago. This latest information from Henry Mayo, combined with the death of a Santa Clarita Transit driver who died last month but not at Henry Mayo, brings the total number of reported deaths in the SCV to eight.
During a press conference on Wednesday, Dr. Barbara Ferrer, director of the L.A. County Public Health Department, said that in the last 24 hours there have been 1,264 new cases confirmed, bringing the total number of cases countywide to 34,428 confirmed cases.
Ferrer said that the high number of cases reported on Wednesday was in part due to the backlog of tests being reported from over the weekend.
In the last day, Ferrer said, 47 new deaths related to COVID-19 were reported throughout the county, bringing the total to 1,659.
“I want to note that in one month, we’ve experienced 1,300 additional deaths,” Ferrer said. “On April 13, we reported 363 people had passed away, and as I noted today we’re reporting close to 1,700 people have passed away.”
Ferrer said 92% of the deaths related to COVID-19 were cases where underlying conditions were present. The mortality rate within L.A. County remains at approximately 4.8% of confirmed cases.
In addition to reporting the latest death, Moody provided the weekly update on Henry Mayo’s testing numbers Wednesday morning. He said the hospital has administered 1,106 tests: 182 have been positive; 1,007 have been negative; 28 tests are still pending; 12 people are presently in the hospital; and 62 people have recovered in the hospital and been discharged.
Public Health reported Wednesday that the number of cases within the SCV, including all area health care providers’ daily figures and Pitchess Detention Center, totaled 848. Broken down by region, the local cases are as follows as of Wednesday afternoon:
City of Santa Clarita: 529
Unincorporated – Acton: 8
Unincorporated – Agua Dulce: 3
Unincorporated – Bouquet Canyon: 0
Unincorporated – Canyon Country: 30
Unincorporated – Castaic: 229 (includes cases from Pitchess Detention Center)
Unincorporated – Lake Hughes: 0
Unincorporated – Newhall: 0
Unincorporated – Placerita Canyon: 0
Unincorporated – San Francisquito Canyon/Bouquet Canyon: 0
Unincorporated – Sand Canyon: 0
Unincorporated – Saugus: 4
Unincorporated – Saugus/Canyon Country: 0
Unincorporated – Stevenson Ranch: 27
Unincorporated – Val Verde: 12
Unincorporated – Valencia: 6
Pitchess Detention Center, including all four of its jails, had a total of 187 inmates who had been diagnosed as COVID-19 positive, according to the latest numbers provided by the Department of Public Health.
To view all coronavirus-related stories, visit signalscv.com/category/news/coronavirus.