Los Angeles County officials have released their COVID-19 Surveillance Dashboard. It is a wider – though not all-encompassing – view of the pandemic in L.A. County. During the daily press briefing on Wednesday, health officials updated the public on the scientific modeling on which they’re basing their “reopening” strategy, and the daily status counts.

The Surveillance Dashboard is the latest interactive graphing and dataset from the county. This particular one allows users to go through a few maps and charts of demographic information collected by the county.

The “Demographics” tab includes race and ethnicity, income-level, gender and age are charted by cases, deaths and number tested.

In Wednesday’s briefing, county officials talked about the disproportionally high death rates for American Indian or Native Alaskan, Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander and African Americans. Latino case and death rates are up too.

Like Monday, when talking about aggressively addressing inequalities, Department of Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer said these numbers were deeply disturbing and systemic inequalities needed to be addressed immediately.

Department of Health Services Director Christina Ghaly said the county is expanding testing into places with less access – communities of color and low-income areas – but the county has yet to say how they will overcome systemic barriers to fill the empty appointment spots at mobile testing sites. On Tuesday, for instance, the East L.A. College site, which is the one closest to Alhambra, seemed to have just half its available appointments filled, according to Pono Barnes, a press officer for L.A. County’s Emergency Operations Center. Their daily capacity is 350 tests.

Cities and communities have thus far shown only a total number of cases and rate of positives per 100,000 people, but now seem to have more parsed data on cases, deaths and number of people tested.

For example, Alhambra has 81 confirmed positive cases. And the county dashboard also shows that 476 residents of the city with a population of 86,000 people have been tested, and, it shows that there have been four deaths.

The list of institutional facilities under investigation by the county has one Alhambra location, Alhambra Healthcare & Wellness Centre, but no deaths have been recorded there. Institutional facilities are investigated by the county if there is a confirmed or suspected case of coronavirus.

What the dashboard lacks is the notation of when and where the deaths occurred – a local hospital, a skilled nursing facility, or at a private residence.

Of course, there is a need to protect patient privacy and respect each person’s death is not just a number, but these kinds of questions about death location come up everywhere from Alhambra-related Facebook groups, to the press questioning of the county.

There are some numbers however, that bring up more questions than give answers.

One of the most shocking numbers is in the Little Armenia community in northeast Hollywood, near Los Angeles City College. They too have 81 cases, but have only tested 97 people, and have 23 deaths. The only other area with 23 deaths is the City of Burbank, with 960 persons tested. The population totals are drastically different, but the death rate per 100,000 people in Little Armenia is 286.6 – the highest of any community – versus Burbank’s 21.46.

It’s important to keep in mind though, that these data points are created by lab reports, which have a high frequency of missing addresses, and those without addresses will not be added to a community’s total.

When it came to the countywide spread and projections, modeling shows that the curve is still flattening, and most everything is still on course with the last set of models.

If the county were to lift all restrictions, virtually all of the county would be infected with COVID-19 by August 1. With current levels of social distancing, around 12% of the county will contract the disease, and, if needed, increased distancing would cut that number in half.

Ghaly noted that hospitals, intensive care units and ventilators are prepared for the possible range of COVID-19 patients, but that they are learning that  patients are staying hospitalized longer than expected.

She gave no explanation for this other than saying that they are learning about this virus in real-time and adjusting the models.

The concern the county has with relaxing “Safer at Home” restrictions too soon is that there will be a sharp spike in cases, and at the end of the summer there will still be COVID-19 infections when heading into the fall flu season, Ferrer said.

“This would be the year to get flu shots,” she said.

The City of Alhambra announced their own testing efforts will begin on May 4.

Here are some of the case numbers presented by the L.A. County Health Department press release:

• In the last 24 hours: 56 deaths; 1,541 cases
• Total deaths: 1,056 (including Pasadena’s 36 deaths and Long Beach’s 33)
• Total cases: 22,485

The breakdown by community, plus Health Department confirmed institutional settings with one or more cases:

• Alhambra: 81
  • Alhambra Healthcare & Wellness Centre, LP
    • 3 confirmed staff; 2 confirmed resident
  • Royal Gardens Extended Care (Removed 4/24)
    • 3 confirmed staff
• Arcadia: 38
  • Arcadia Gardens Retirement Hotel
    • 2 confirmed staff; 1 confirmed resident
  • Santa Anita Convalescent Hospital
    • 14 confirmed staff; 27 confirmed resident; 6 death
• Unincorporated Arcadia: 4
• Boyle Heights: 190
  • Hollenbeck Palms (Removed 4/24)
    • Under investigation
  • Infinity Care of East Los Angeles
    • 2 confirmed resident
• Unincorporated East L.A.: 357
  • Buena Ventura Post Acute Care Center
    • 15 confirmed staff; 41 confirmed resident; 5 death
• El Monte: 148
  • Eastland Subacute & Rehabilitation Center (Removed 4/24)
    • Under investigation
  • Idle Acre Sanitarium & Convalescent Hospital (Gardens of El Monte) (Removed 4/24)
    • 1 confirmed staff
  • Mayflower Care Center (Removed 4/24)
    • Under investigation
  • Ramona Nursing & Rehabilitation
    • 2 confirmed resident
• El Sereno: 92
  • Huntington Healthcare Center
    • 9 positive staff; 21 confirmed resident; 11 death
• Highland Park: 85
  • Highland Park Skilled Nursing and Wellness Center
    • 2 confirmed staff; 1 confirmed resident
• Lincoln Heights: 70
  • Juvenile Central Hall (Removed 4/24)
    • Under investigation
  • Kei-Ai Los Angeles Healthcare Center
    • 9 confirmed staff; 23 confirmed resident; 4 death
• Montebello: 126
  • Montebello Care Center
    • 4 confirmed resident; 1 death
  • Rio Hondo Subacute and Nursing
    • 11 confirmed staff, 9 confirmed resident, 1 death
• Monterey Park: 72
  • DaVita Garfield Hemodialysis Center (Listed 4/21; removed 4/22)
    • 1 confirmed staff; 1 confirmed resident; 1 probable resident
• Pasadena: 383 (separate health department often different information than county)
  • Arbor Vista
    • <11 confirmed staff; <11 confirmed resident
  • Brighton Care Center
    • 16 confirmed staff; 75 resident; 15 death
  • California Pasadena Convalescent Hospital (The Californian)
    • <11 confirmed staff; <11 confirmed resident
  • Camellia Gardens
    • <11 confirmed staff; <11 confirmed resident; 1 death
  • Fair Oaks Regency Park
    • <11 confirmed staff; <11 confirmed resident
  • Foothill Heights Care Center
    • <11 confirmed staff; <11 confirmed resident; 1 death
  • Garfield Care Center (no active cases on 4/15)
  • GEM Transitional Care Center
    • <11 confirmed staff; 17 confirmed resident; 2 death
  • Golden Cross Healthcare
    • <11 confirmed staff; <11 confirmed resident
  • Huntington Dialysis Center in Pasadena (Removed 4/24)
  • Huntington Post Acute (Pasadena Meadows)
    • <11 confirmed staff; 34 confirmed resident; 4 death
  • Jasmine Terrace
    • 17 confirmed staff; 32 confirmed resident; 7 death
  • Legacy Care Center (Listed 4/14; removed 4/15)
  • Pasadena Grove Health Center
    • 20 confirmed staff; 23 confirmed resident; 2 death
  • Pasadena Park Healthcare & Wellness Center
    • 4 confirmed staff, 3 confirmed resident
  • Rose Garden
    • 20 confirmed staff; 30 confirmed resident; 5 death
  • Vincent’s
    • <11 confirmed staff; <11 confirmed resident; 1 death
  • Villa Gardens Health Center
    • <11 confirmed staff; 17 confirmed resident; 3 death
• Rosemead: 32
• San Gabriel: 30
  • Live Oak Rehabilitation Center (Removed 4/24)
    • Under investigation
  • Quality Dialysis Center – San Gabriel (Listed 4/21; removed 4/22)
    • 1 confirmed staff; 1 confirmed resident
• Unincorporated Northeast San Gabriel: 13
• Unincorporated South San Gabriel: 9
• San Marino: 11
• South El Monte: 22
• Unincorporated South El Monte: 1
• South Pasadena: 74
  • South Pasadena Care Center
    • 28 confirmed staff; 57 confirmed resident; 6 deaths
• Temple City: 48
• University Hills: 7

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Want to help?

• California is looking for healthy volunteers to safely help their local communities. Go to the Californians for All site to get info on volunteering in the community or from home.
• California is looking for donations of medical resources to respond to COVID-19. Go to the site to see what kind of equipment is needed.
• A. County is looking to lease hotel and motels for COVID-19 testing, quarantine, isolation and medical shelters. Contact the Office of Emergency Operations Center. See today’s situation.
• Looking for other ways? National and Community Service, the home of AmeriCorps and Senior Corps, have ideas.

Need help?

• Call 2-1-1 for:
  • Homeless services and medical shelters
  • Drive-through COVID-19 testing appointments
  • Any other referrals to county services
• Meals:
  • Critical Delivery Service or 888-863-7411
  • Workforce Development, Aging and Community Services page or 800-510-2020
  • County COVID-19 food resource dashboard
• Economic Impact Payment (stimulus check):
  • Non-filer payment information
• Department of Mental Health or 24-hour help line 800-854-7771
• Domestic Violence
  • Domestic Violence Council or 800-978-3000
  • Violence Against Women Act: Certain non-citizens in abusive situations can apply for permanent residency
  • Hotline: 800-978-3600
• Employment:
  • OnwardCA is working to place people into open positions.
• Info from the county on a face covering, video directions on how to make one.

Los Angeles County Department of Public Health page.

For all of the reporting from the Alhambra Source, go to our Stay Healthy page.

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