Delta Variant Has ‘Crowded Out’ Other COVID-19 Strains, County Public Health Director Says

The Delta variant of the COVID-19 virus now accounts for virtually all of the new infections in Los Angeles County, having “outcompeted” and “crowded out” the other variants, the county’s public health director said Friday.

According to the latest genetic analysis, “Delta variant now accounts for 100% of all sequenced strains in L.A. County,” according to Barbara Ferrer.

“This variant is more infectious and more efficiently transmitted between people compared to earlier COVID strains, and this obviously crowded out all of the other previously circulating strains,” she said.

“While emerging data affirms that fully vaccinated people are well protected from severe infections with delta variants, it’s now clear that fully vaccinated people can become infected, and if infected with Delta, they infect others,” Ferrer said.

After reviewing data from recent months using updated virus variant libraries, county officials had identified a total of 232 infections involving the Mu variant, which had recently drawn a watchful eye from experts as a “variant of interest,” she said.

Twenty-eight infections involving the Lambda variant have been detected in the county, in all, Ferrer said.

But both variants appear to have faded away over the summer in L.A. County, having been “outcompeted” by the Delta variant.

She announced 2,024 new COVID-19 infections and 50 additional deaths on Friday, which raised the county’s totals to 1,427,817 cases of the virus and 25,611 fatalities.

Officials listed 1,385 patients hospitalized with the virus county-wide, which was 58 fewer than on Friday of last week.

L.A. County’s daily test positivity rate on Friday was 2.6%, Ferrer added.

The Pasadena Public Health Department documented 18 new infections for the third day in a row.

With no new deaths reported on Friday, the city’s totals stood at 12,927 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 358 fatalities.

The average number of infections detected daily over the prior week was measured at 17.1, according to PPHD data.

As of Thursday, Huntington Hospital officials reported treating 23 COVID-19 patients on Friday, with seven of them being housed in ICUs.

Statewide, authorities reported 9,244 infections and 165 deaths on Friday, raising the state’s pandemic totals to 4,331,605 cases of COVID-19 and 66,422 fatalities.

The state’s average positivity rate for the prior week increased slightly to 4.7%, according to California Department of Public Health data.

As of Friday, L.A. County represented 33% of California’s COVID-19 infections and 39% of the state’s deaths.