County health officials asked residents to get tested for COVID-19 if they were possibly exposed to the virus over the holiday weekend or weren’t following proper health protocols.

“If you were in a super crowded area this weekend and people near you were not wearing their face coverings and you weren’t wearing your face covering, you should get tested,” county health director Barbara Ferrer said.

Officials are especially concerned about Labor Day weekend because of spikes they saw in COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths in the weeks after Fourth of July: new case numbers went from 2,200 around July 4 to more than 3,100 two weeks later, after the incubation period for the virus.

“This increase that we saw toward the middle of July really was a reflection of activities that were happening and transmission that was happening over our July Fourth holiday,” Ferrer said.

Throughout August, however, the number of new cases per day has declined steadily. The county is now averaging about 1,000 new cases per day, and officials hope Labor Day didn’t hinder that. Hospitalizations have also been steadily declining.

County officials reported 671 new cases Wednesday and city officials reported 82, but Ferrer noted that the numbers were lower than usual because the holiday weekend and extreme heat caused the closures of some testing sites while delaying results. County officials also reported 936 people hospitalized and 61 new deaths.

Long Beach officials also released protocols for schools to serve students with special needs in small cohorts. The city health department is following in the county’s footsteps and not accepting applications for waivers for elementary school students.