Health and Healthcare

This Single County Has More COVID-19 Deaths Than 40 States Do

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Ten of America’s 50 states have fatal COVID-19 cases that total over 7,000 each. A single county, the largest in the United States by population, has topped that figure also. Los Angeles County has recorded 7,623 deaths due to the disease.

The 10 states ahead of Los Angeles County are New York (34,433 deaths), Texas (21,639), California (19,026), Florida (18,354), New Jersey (16,925), Illinois (12,594), Massachusetts (10,604), Pennsylvania (10,172), Georgia (9,336) and Michigan (9,170).

Los Angeles County is also ahead of some large states by population that have been hard hit by the disease.  This includes in particular Arizona, which has had 6,568 fatal cases, many concentrated in the areas around Phoenix, the nation’s fifth-largest city, with a population of almost 1.7 million people.

Los Angeles County has a population of 10,105,518. That makes it about double the size of the next largest county by that measure, which is Cook County, home to Chicago, at 5,180,493. Harris County, home to Houston, follows at 4,698,619, and then Maricopa County, home to Phoenix, with its population of 4,410,824.

Los Angeles County includes America’s second-largest city, Los Angeles, which has a population of 3,979,576. The county contains 13 other cities with populations of over 100,000. Covering 4,083 square miles, the county is larger than Delaware and Rhode Island combined.

Among the markers for the deep trouble in Los Angeles County is that it has 386,194 confirmed cases, which have started to rise by 5,000 a day. Daily new hospitalizations have reached 2,000. Media reports say about a quarter of those are in intensive care.

New and strict regulations may start to bring down the rapid spread of the disease in Los Angeles County. However, they may be too late to stop a post-Thanksgiving surge. According to CBS Los Angeles, “The new order, which will last through at least Dec. 20, advises residents to stay at home as much as possible, always wear a face-covering outside the home, and prohibits all public and private gatherings except for constitutionally-protected religious services and protests.” Retailers will only be able to operate at 35% of the capacity their stores normally are allowed to have.

At the present rate, new surges in Los Angeles County could put the daily coronavirus death toll above 8,000, a grim reminder of the grip the disease has on much of America.


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