L.A. County Public Health Department officials reported Friday 48 new cases of COVID-19 for the Santa Clarita Valley and 2,642 countywide, for a total of 4,876 and 218,693, respectively.
In the SCV, new cases over the past 24 hours were attributed to the city of Santa Clarita (39), Canyon Country (1), Castaic (2), Stevenson Ranch (4), Val Verde (1) and Valencia (1).
Public Health also reported 45 new deaths, which raised the countywide death toll to 5,214. Of the 45 new deaths reported Friday, 21 people who died, excluding Long Beach and Pasadena, were over the age of 80 years old, 12 people were between the ages of 65 and 79 years old, nine people were between the ages of 50 and 64 years old, and two people were between the ages of 30 and 49 years old.
New cases reported Friday are not known to include many backlog numbers from California’s lab report system. State officials previously announced that a glitch caused a backlog of hundreds of thousands of test results. The issue was resolved last week and counties were given the greenlight to process cases that would later be added to the state’s latest tallies.
Friday’s tally does “include delayed reporting of a few hundred cases from (Thursday). A backlog of cases from the state is still expected,” according to Public Health in a news release.
Despite the backlog, the county has continued to see a downward trend in daily hospitalizations as the seven-day average has dropped from 2,026 patients two weeks ago to the current average of 1,521. As of Friday, there were 1,415 hospitalized, of which 33% were in the ICU.
Hospitalizations at Henry Mayo Newhall hospital have also dropped. Two weeks ago, the hospital reported 25 admissions and on Wednesday reported a total of nine.
“The lower number of daily COVID-19 hospitalizations is encouraging. However, we still have far too many people spreading this virus,” said Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer in a prepared statement. “Every day, a team of public health specialists investigate clusters of cases associated with parties, dinner events and gatherings. None of these activities are essential and all can lead to growing number of cases, hospitalizations and deaths.”
The number of SCV cases, including all area health care providers’ daily figures and those at
Pitchess Detention Center, totaled 4,923 Friday, broken down into region as follows:
City of Santa Clarita: 2,602
Unincorporated – Acton: 55
Unincorporated – Agua Dulce: 22
Unincorporated – Bouquet Canyon: 5
Unincorporated – Canyon Country: 101
Unincorporated – Castaic: 1,876 (majority of Castaic cases come from Pitchess Detention Center, exact number unavailable)
Unincorporated – Lake Hughes: 2
Unincorporated – Newhall: 6
Unincorporated – Placerita Canyon: 0
Unincorporated – San Francisquito Canyon/Bouquet Canyon: 0
Unincorporated – Sand Canyon: 5
Unincorporated – Saugus: 21
Unincorporated – Saugus/Canyon Country: 1
Unincorporated – Stevenson Ranch: 135
Unincorporated – Val Verde: 53
Unincorporated – Valencia: 39
To view all coronavirus-related stories, visit signalscv.com/category/news/coronavirus.
