COVID ‘hotspots’ – including Lancaster, Palmdale, Studio City, Santa Clarita – fuel surge fears

Amid lingering concerns about a potential post-holiday coronavirus surge, Lancaster, Palmdale, Santa Clarita, Studio City and Venice are among the latest hotspots for coronavirus, officials said Thursday, Nov. 18. But the reasons why remained unclear for investigators. Though there was one common theme: The disease seemed to be circulating most among younger adults.

From Oct. 24 to Nov. 6, L.A. County public health officials identified 10 cities in the region with the highest case incidence, L.A. County Public Director Barbara Ferrer reported Thursday.

Topping the list were Lancaster, with a 14-day case rate of 338 cases per 100,000 people, Palmdale at 331 per 100,000 and Studio City at 301 per 100,000, according to metrics shared by Ferrer with reporters.

The metrics show an array of cities and neighborhoods that don’t necessarily fit a common pattern, Ferrer said. On one hand, there’s Lancaster, where vaccination rates are relatively low — at 58%. But on the other hand, there’s Studio City and Santa Clarita, where vaccination and testing rates are much higher. Studio City, for instance, has a 79% vaccination rate.

The differences are significant in the context of the widespread push for more vaccinations, Ferrer said, which is why Public Health officials are probing it.

Ferrer noted that the numbers do not mean vaccinations are not vital. In fact, Ferrer stressed “you’ve got a much higher risk of ending up infected, ending up in the hospital and tragically passing away. So that’s crystal clear and hasn’t really changed for months now.” On an individual level, that remains true.

But Ferrer added something else might be happening in communities that investigators don’t fully understand yet.

“I was a little disappointed for us to not be able to come away from this and say, ‘yeah, this is crystal clear. These communities in the top 10 with recent high case rates are communities with low vaccination rates…’ But it isn’t true here,” Ferrer said.

In some cases, it may be that more people haven’t been infected in the past, plus are not vaccinated. But officials were seeking more data. But what is true, Ferrer noted was the relative youth of the people catching the disease in those top 10 communities.

“The one thing that does jump out is that average ages were very low in all of these communities,” Ferrer said. “I mean, this is essentially — in the communities with the highest rates  — this is a pandemic which is in fact fueled by younger people. When the median age is between 26 and 36, you know that that intermingling both socially and at worksites is contributing.”

The list was a red flag going into what is the second COVID-19-era holiday season.

With risk still substantially high countywide, health officials remain concerned about the potential for post Thanksgiving Day surges.

After falling fairly dramatically from August to mid-October, hospitalizations from the disease seem to have plateaued of late. The average daily case rate countywide has ticked up from an average daily case rate of 8 cases per 100,000 to 9 cases per 100,000 this week.

The 81 cases per 100,000 per week has kept the county in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s “substantial transmission” tier for weeks.

On Thursday, the county also confirmed another 26 deaths, adding to the 26,849 who died here from the disease since February 2020. The county also confirmed another 1,088 cases, adding to the total of 1,515,324  official cases since last year.

Officials took heart from the lack of a surge now that it is two weeks out from Halloween — which Ferrer attributed to more vaccinations of young people, and families just making good choices, layering in protections such as masking and social distancing wherever possible.

“We’re hoping that similar layering of protections will make it possible for us to gather together without creating risk for increased transmission,” Ferrer said, referring to the coming holiday.

But she and other public health officials are taking note of areas domestically — such as Colorado — and internationally — such as Europe — where case rates are spiking upward, and hospital rooms are filling up again.

A surge in cases in the Upper Midwest has some Michigan schools keeping students at home ahead of Thanksgiving and the military sending medical teams to Minnesota to relieve hospital staffs overwhelmed by COVID-19 patients.

The worsening outlook in the Midwest comes as booster shots are being made available to everyone in a growing number of locations. Massachusetts and Utah became the latest to say anyone 18 or older can roll up a sleeve for a booster shots, and an advisory committee for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is meeting Friday to discuss expanding boosters.

Cold-weather states are dominating the fresh wave of cases over the last seven days, including New Hampshire, North Dakota and Wisconsin, according to federal data. But the Southwest had trouble spots, too, with more than 90% of inpatient hospital beds occupied in Arizona.

“I think there are some situations that may be a little different,” Ferrer said, referring to L.A. County. “We’ve invested a lot of support at our schools, … our schools are doing really really well on avoiding being places where there’s a lot of transmission. But I do think with travel there’s a lot of risk. We urge people who are traveling to only travel if they are fully vaccinated.

“It is our second Thanksgiving during the pandemic and we’d like to avoid the uptick. We need to manage our Thanksgiving with a lot of care, so we’re able to have a great winter holiday as well.”