Los Angeles County is bringing back its indoor mask mandate despite there not being a single COVID-19 patient in the ICU at its largest healthcare provider.
LA County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer said last week that the county would bring back its indoor mask mandate by the end of July after the area moved into the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) “high” risk community level based on transmission and hospitalization rates. However, doctors in Los Angeles raised questions this week about just how many people are in the hospital due to the coronavirus.
“Only 10% of our COVID-positive admissions are admitted due to COVID, virtually none of them go to the ICU, and when they do go to the ICU, it is not for pneumonia. They are not intubated,” LA County+USC Medical Center (LAC+USC) chief medical officer Dr. Brad Spellberg said recently at an internal town hall.
After video of the comments spread, LAC+USC released a statement clarifying the remarks, but it confirmed that the area isn’t seeing a surge in serious COVID-19 cases.
“We would like to be very clear: the COVID-19 pandemic remains a very serious public health threat that we must continue to fight with every tool available,” the statement read. “While we are not currently experiencing an increase in ICU admissions at LAC+USC, we are seeing a significant increase in the number of infections among our patients, staff and the communities we serve.”
NEW: L.A. County+USC hospital confirms only 10% of their COVID positive patients are hospitalized *for* COVID, few are being admitted to ICU, & nobody has been intubated for COVID pneumonia in months. Only 3 patients currently hospitalized *for* COVID, none are in ICU. @FoxNews pic.twitter.com/FPnHheSpX7
— Bill Melugin (@BillFOXLA) July 18, 2022
“At the current time, approximately 10 percent of patients admitted to LAC+USC Medical Center with a positive COVID test are admitted due to the illness caused by COVID… we have not had a patient intubated due to COVID pneumonia for several months.”
The hospital went on to say that there are about 30 COVID-positive patients in the facility, only three of whom are there because of the virus. None of them are in the ICU. While county-wide data on hospitalizations caused by COVID rather than with COVID isn’t available, LAC+USC is the largest single healthcare provider in the county. (RELATED: Healthcare Execs Cashed In For Billions Thanks To COVID)
Hospitalizations have long been a flawed metric due to the fact that few jurisdictions break down the difference between hospitalizations caused by COVID-19 and those which are incidental. However, public health officials, including in LA County, are increasingly citing the metric as a reason to bring back mask mandates across the country.