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LOS ANGELES (CNS) - Los Angeles County health officials reported another 2,333 COVID-19 infections from a three-day period ending Monday, along with 45 new virus-related deaths.
The county Department of Public Health reported 1,173 infections for Saturday, 786 on Sunday and 388 on Monday.
Sunday and Monday figures are traditionally undercounts due to delays in reporting from the weekend. The daily case numbers released by the county are also undercounts of actual virus activity, due to people who use at-home tests and don't report the results, and others who don't test at all.
The county reported 20 virus-related deaths for Saturday, 15 for Sunday and 10 for Monday.
The new fatalities lifted the county's overall death toll to 35,470.
The seven-day average rate of people testing positive for the virus was 6.1% as of Monday, holding roughly steady from the past week.
Health officials do not release COVID statistics on weekends.
An updated number of COVID-positive patients in county hospitals was not immediately available. As of Saturday, there were 697 such patients, with 69 of them being treated in intensive care units.
Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer said last week that COVID-19 infection and hospitalization rates were holding steady at a relatively low rate. The county's seven-day rate of new infections was 69 per 100,000 residents, while the seven-day virus-related hospital admission rate was 7 per 100,000 residents, both on par with the previous week.
The statistics remained flat despite the emergence of the XBB.1.5 strain of the virus as the most prevalent variant in the county, representing 32.8% of all samples that underwent specialized sequencing.
Health officials warned that the latest strain is more capable of causing infection, and they urged residents to continue being cautious to prevent spread of the illness.
Masks are still required indoors at health-care and congregate-care facilities in the county, and for anyone exposed to the virus in the past 10 days, and at businesses where they are required by the owner. Masks are strongly recommended for high-risk individuals, and for people riding public transit.
For all other indoor settings, wearing masks is a matter of residents' personal preference.