Glendale now has 76 confirmed coronavirus cases, becoming one of highest infected cities in the county
UPDATE: Glendale now has 76 confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus, according to a report released by the L.A. County Department of Public Health on Tuesday. The city of Los Angeles has 1,386 confirmed cases and Long Beach has 115. Across the county, there are 3,011 cases and 54 deaths tied to the virus.
Glendale has the third highest number of cases in the county, after Los Angeles and Long Beach. It leads both cities in cases per capita, based on the available data.
Glendale has 62 confirmed cases of the coronavirus, a figure that more than doubled over the weekend, according to a report by the L.A. County Department of Public Health.
The city now has the third highest number of cases in the county, after Los Angeles and Long Beach, which have 1,171 and 99 cases, respectively. The L.A. neighborhood of Melrose has 82 cases alone. Across the county, there are roughly 2,474 cases.
“I know we can do a better job, and we need to do a better job, to try and stop the infection from spreading,” Mayor Ara Najarian said on Tuesday.
On Friday, Glendale had 29 confirmed cases of the virus that causes COVID-19, a figure that itself represented a doubling of cases over about 48 hours.
Najarian said the local rise could be tied in part to its large population of Armenian Americans and Iranian Americans, who are used to greeting each other with hugs and kisses.
It’s also a family-oriented city, where large gatherings are common, he said.
Numbers across the county have skyrocketed, partially due to an increase in testing capacity, county officials said.
Glendale, often referred to as the third or fourth largest city in the county, has a population of roughly 200,000, according to recent census data. The city of Los Angeles is home to about 4 million people and Long Beach is estimated to have a population of just over 460,000.
The number of local cases is expected to continue to rise, with a peak predicted for late April, according to Keith Hobbs, chief executive of USC Verdugo Hills Hospital.
“Our hospital, along with our sister hospitals in Glendale, continue our planning and ramping up to be able to accommodate the additional patients that we believe will be coming,” Hobbs said on Monday.
Hobbs said the hospital is equipped to handle the cases it’s currently seeing and is working to acquire more ventilators, protective gear and ICU beds in anticipation of a rise in cases.
USC-VHH reported the city’s first confirmed case of the virus on the morning of March 16. The city declared a local state of emergency hours later, which has been extended until April 30. A little over a week ago, a Glendale resident died from the virus.
About 26 people have tested positive for COVID-19 at USC-VHH, with 13 being sent home to self-quarantine and nine transferred to another facility, according to a virtual dashboard the hospital launched.
Glendale Memorial Hospital and Glendale Adventist Hospital have not released the number of patients who have tested positive at their facilities.
The chief executives of the three local hospitals “are in touch on a daily basis, discussing what we’re dealing with and how we can help one another,” Hobbs said.