City officials on Wednesday reported 16 more coronavirus-related deaths, and the county reported 307 deaths—however both agencies said other indicators, including the transmission rate, continue to fall.

Long Beach has reported 48 deaths this week and 239 so far in January, which accounts for nearly 38% of the city’s total deaths, 634, since the onset of the pandemic 10 months ago.

As deaths continue to mount at an unprecedented rate, other metrics continue promising trends of decreasing or stabilizing below previous highs. The city reported 372 new cases of the virus Wednesday, a significant departure from previous reports and the city’s month-to-date average of nearly 600 cases per day.

Hospitalizations remain stable—but high—having slightly increased from 433 Monday and Tuesday to 436 on Wdnesday.

The seven-day positivity rate continued to fall Wednesday, now at 11.1%, the lowest it has been since early December. Similarly, daily causes per 100,000 residents is down to 78.7, also its lowest point in over a month.

At the county level, COVID-19 transmission rate—the average number of people a COVID patient infects with the virus—also continues to decline, estimated Wednesday at 0.85, down from 0.94 last week. Keeping that number below 1.0 is considered critical to slowing the spread of the virus.

County officials reported a continued downward trend of new COVID-cases, with 6,916 new infections Wednesday for a total of 1,091,712 cases since the pandemic began.

During a press conference Wednesday, County public health Director Barbara Ferrer and county Health Services Director Christina Ghaly said the daily number of deaths is likely to remain elevated for at least two more weeks due to the recent surge of COVID patients swarming intensive-care units.

County hospitalizations continue to trend downward, with the state reporting 6,026 COVID-related patients in county hospitals as of Wednesday, including 1,542 in intensive care units. At the start of the year, the county was averaging more than 8,000 hospitalized coronavirus patients, with around 1,900 in ICUs.

Ghaly noted that hospitals are now averaging about 500 new COVID patient admissions per day, down from more than 700 earlier this month. The number is still double the rate seen during the summer surge in July.

CNS contributed to this report.