Long Beach health officials on Monday reported eight new coronavirus-related deaths, making last week the deadliest since February 2021, according to city data.

City coronavirus data is always one work day behind.

Last week, the city reported 28 new coronavirus deaths, compared to 32 deaths for the entire months of November and December, combined. County officials, meanwhile, reported 40 new deaths.

While deaths continue to mount, new cases of the virus continue to wane across the region, with the city reporting 743 new cases and the county reporting 10,715. Over the last several weeks the city and county had reported as many as 2,000 and 45,000 new cases in a single day, respectively.

But the numbers are still significant enough that health officials are not prepared to ease guidelines such as mask mandates.

“At some point soon, transmission will be significantly lower, and we will not need to wear our masks everywhere; unfortunately, we aren’t there yet,” county Director of Public Health Barbara Ferrer said in a statement Monday. Ferrer added that low-compliance with the masking mandate is not reason to end the requirement.

“That would be like eliminating speed limits because many drivers ignore them,” she said.

The city’s seven-day positivity rate and daily cases per 100,000 residents continue their slow but steady decline, now at 23.4% and 214.8, respectively. The county reported a positivity rate of 8.8% Monday.

As of Friday, intensive care units inside Long Beach-area hospitals were 91.4% full, with over 41% of those patients having COVID-19. In Long Beach, 303 people were hospitalized with the virus. Countywide, 3,720 people are hospitalized.

Health officials continue to urge people to receive their coronavirus vaccines as a means to take stress off of overburdened hospitals.

By comparison, as of Jan. 22, Long Beach officials have reported 270 cases of the flu for the 2021-22 season, according to city data. One flu-related death has been reported.