by Steven Felschundneff | steven@claremont-courier.com

During a Monday news conference Los Angeles County Director of Public Health Barbara Ferrer introduced a new list of three Cs.

In the past she has talked about slowing the spread of the coronavirus with the three Cs to avoid: crowds, confined spaces and close contact with people you don’t live with. Add to that the three Cs for everyone to adopt: compliance, containment and collaboration.

There is really not a lot of new information in this set of three Cs. Compliance includes businesses following the health order and people wearing face coverings and continuing to wash their hands. Containment refers to increased testing, contract tracing and businesses’ duty to report outbreaks. Collaboration includes uninterrupted supply chains of PPE and testing supplies as well as consistent messaging.

The meaning behind Ms. Ferrer’s new list was clear—if the county can not bring its outbreak into compliance with state guidelines, and thereby be removed from the monitoring list, then we may be going back to a more strict stay at home order. Still, she expressed optimism that the people of L.A. County could slow the spread and avoid any further interruptions to our daily lives.

“The county has enough tools that if fully utilized should allow us to slow the spread without going back to more stringent safer at home orders,” she said.

In a news release sent out Monday, Claremont’s confirmed number of cumulative cases has now reached 234, including 231 in the city and 3 in unincorporated areas. Claremont still has only four confirmed deaths. Claremont’s cases have more than doubled this month, with 126 new infections recorded since July 1. 

The county reported 80 deaths since Thursday and 7,370 new cases. There are 176,028 cumulative cases of COVID-19 in L.A. County, and a total of 4,375 deaths. Ninety-two percent of people who died had underlying health conditions. There are 2,017 people currently hospitalized with confirmed cases, 29 percent of whom are in the ICU.

The county continues to report a trend of younger people becoming infected, with the majority of cases occurring among 18- to 49-year-old residents. People between the ages of 30 and 49 account for the largest proportion of cases.

“It’s been 145 days since the COVID-19 public health emergency was declared in LA County. One hundred and forty-five days in which the dangerous new virus has changed all of our lives. upending our daily routines, bringing significant stress to our families and businesses. It has claimed more than 4,000 lives in our county and infected over 176,000 of our residents,” Ms. Ferrer said.