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World

U.S. Los Angeles on track to further reopen businesses next week

2021-04-30 15:27:09

LOS ANGELES, April 29 (Xinhua) -- Los Angeles County is ready to further reopen businesses next week, said the county's public health department in a news release Thursday.

The county is on track to move into the least restrictive yellow COVID-19 tier of California's four-tier, color-coded system amid dropping cases and vaccine eligibility expansion.

Moving into the yellow tier allows for increases in capacity in many sectors, such as amusement parks, fairs, gyms, museums, zoos, and aquariums, according to the department.

Public health officials said that a modified Health Officer Order will go into effect on next Thursday.

The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health reported 416 new cases of COVID-19 and 42 new deaths on Thursday, bringing its cumulative cases up to 1,232,727 with 23,872 related deaths.

Officials noted that COVID-19 case rate currently remains relatively low and stable in the county, which was once an epicenter of the pandemic in the United States.

"A month ago, on March 21, the county was seeing 433 cases a day. A month later, on April 21, the number of new cases dropped 34 percent to 337 cases a day. Over the same time period, daily average confirmed hospitalizations dropped 38 percent," said the county's public health officials, adding that daily deaths dropped more than 80 percent over the same time period.

Officials confirmed that over 7.2 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine have been administered to people across the county to date and about 32 percent of residents aged 16 and older are fully vaccinated.

"With all the fear we've been living with over the past year, many of us may have forgotten what an incredibly fun place Los Angeles can be. We are so close to being able to reclaim that fun, and the ticket to doing that is getting ourselves, our friends, our families and our co-workers vaccinated," said the county's Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer in the release.

"When we've gotten our vaccines and know everyone around is also vaccinated, we can feel safe enough to be close to them, to laugh and sing and dance with them, to enjoy them and the place where we live without fear," she said. Enditem

Editor:Jiang Yiwei