Another 10 Long Beach residents have died from coronavirus-related causes, officials announced Thursday, Feb. 18, pushing the city’s death toll closer to 800. So far, 797 residents have died with the virus.
The city also reported 83 new coronavirus cases. There have been 50,662 cases identified since the pandemic began.
About 47,148 people — or 93% of those who have tested positive — have since recovered.
The number of people being treated for the virus in local hospitals ticked slightly upward on Thursday, though the general trajectory over the past month has still been a significant decline in hospitalizations. There were 192 people being treated with the virus locally on Thursday, up from 190 the prior day.
Other metrics, though, continued to drop.
The city’s new daily case rate fell to 20.7 per 100,000 people on Thursday, down from 23.2 the previous day. And the positive testing rate dropped to 5.8% from 6.1%.
The news came as city officials shared more details on the scheduled reopening of Long Beach elementary schools next month. While Los Angeles County recently met the required new daily case rate to allow for the reopenings, the county still remains in the state’s most restrictive “purple tier” and has more work to do before older students and additional businesses will be allowed to reopen.
Long Beach’s inoculation program, though, continues to make progress. The city has administered nearly 80,000 vaccine doses so far, with roughly 55,000 of those consisting of first doses, Health and Human Services Director Kelly Colopy said in a Thursday briefing.
Colopy also said that while other agencies like Los Angeles County have had to cancel vaccination appointments because of weather-induced vaccine shipping delays, Long Beach has not yet had to take similar action.
The city currently has sufficient supply to continue with vaccinations through Saturday, she said.
The delays “could affect our supply here in Long Beach,” she said, but “we continue to vaccinate as many people as our supply allows. We have not canceled any vaccination appointments to date.
“We are hopeful,” she added, “that the shipments will be back in place by next week.”