Long Beach conducted a record 3,000 COVID-19 tests at its free, city-run testing sites on Thursday, as demand for testing grows amid the nationwide surge in cases.
As far as its daily numbers count, this city on Friday reported 148 new COVID-19 cases for a total of 17,550 positive cases, while the seven-day average rate of positive cases jumped from 6.4% to 6.8%
Overall COVID hospitalizations in Long Beach’s five area hospitals decreased from 154 to 140 people. State officials are using hospitalizations, specifically intensive care unit beds, as the key metric for deciding whether to enforce new safer-at-home orders in the Southern California region.
If the percentage of ICU beds falls below 15%, the region will see tighter restrictions for businesses.
It was unclear what the ICU capacity is for Long Beach, but the percentage of ICU beds available in Orange County stood at 20%, up from 17% on Thursday. As of Thursday, the Southern California region had 20.60% of its ICU beds available and 55% of its ventilators.
For information on COVID testing list the city’s website.
– City News Service contributed to this report