by Steven Felschundneff steven@claremont-courier.com

Los Angeles County recorded another day with over one thousand new cases of the coronavirus, and 52 deaths, according a news release on Friday from the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health.

Friday’s daily update also included a list of four significant milestones the county must reach before the “Safer at Home” order can be relaxed.

“Public Health has identified four measures that must occur in order to modify provisions in the Safer at Home Order and safely reopen certain businesses, institutions, and public spaces,” the statement read. These “recovery prerequisites” include:

• Ensure hospitals and primary care and specialty services capacity to care for people who are ill and for those who need routine health care.
• Ensure protections for vulnerable populations – especially the elderly, people with underlying health conditions, residents in institutional settings, people experiencing homelessness, and people with poor access to needed services and supports. This includes making sure that there are enough trained staff and personal protective equipment to appropriately manage care at institutional settings.
• Ensure capacity for testing, isolating, and quarantining individuals and for surveillance to prevent the spread of infection.
• Ensure capacity to maintain maximum physical distancing and infection control at all spaces and places where people interact with each other outside of their homes.

Health officials caution that when the order is relaxed, and business and public spaces open, people will be around each other more which will increase the risk, and likely the rate of transmissions and cases in the county, according to the statement.

Countywide 1,035 new cases of COVID-19 were reported, while Claremont’s cases are up slightly to 22. There are still no institutional cases of the disease in Claremont and no cases in the city’s unincorporated areas.

Of the 53 deaths over the past 24 hours 43 were people over the age of 65; 7 were between the ages of 41 and 65; and one was between 18 and 40. Forty-two people had underlying health conditions including 34 over the age of 65.

The latest update from health officials brings the total cases to 18,517 across all areas of L.A. County, and a total of 848 deaths. Ninety percent of people who died had underlying health conditions.