With infections still on the rise, the total number of Covid cases in Los Angeles County has topped 2 million, with 43,582 new cases confirmed today. Since the epidemic began, the county has received 2,010,964 additional cases, bringing the total number of cases to 2,010,964. On Sunday, the number of daily cases in the county reached an all-time high of 45,584.

Another 13 deaths have been confirmed, bringing the total death toll in the county to 27,798.

According to state data, the number of Covid-positive patients in county hospitals continues to climb, reaching 3,472. This was an increase from 3,364 on Sunday. The number of hospitalized patients receiving intensive care treatment has also begun to grow, with 435 on Sunday and 482 on Monday.

The number of hospitalized Covid-positive patients hasn't been this high since February of last year, when a severe winter surge drove the patient count beyond 8,000 for a brief period. According to a state ensemble estimate released today, the number of Covid-related hospitalizations in California will reach 30,000 by the end of the month. This is more than a third more than the previous high set last winter.

“With surging transmission and rapidly rising cases and hospitalizations, our already understaffed health care providers are under enormous strain as they try to care for so many COVID infected people, including those with mild illness who are looking for help and support, with the unintended consequence of compromising response capacity across the entire system,” county Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer said in a statement.

“Because high community transmission has the inevitable impact of increasing demand for health care services, the best way to protect health care personnel and our capacity to care for both those with Covid and non-Covid illness, is to double-down on reducing transmission.”

However, according to the county Department of Public Health, the majority of COVID hospitalizations are among patients who were admitted for another cause and only discovered they had the virus when tested upon admission.

For the week ending Dec. 26, 55 percent of Covid-positive hospital patients were admitted for a different reason, showing that they were not having severe viral symptoms despite being infected with Covid.