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A Los Angeles County child under the age of 18 has become the youngest person in the United States to die from COVID-19.
Los Angeles County health officials reported Tuesday that the child, who was from Lancaster, California, was one of three people to die from the disease. Officials didn’t provide any further details about whether the child had any underlying health conditions.
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“Tragically, one of the people who died was a person under the age of 18, a devastating reminder that COVID-19 infects people of all ages,” Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer told media at a press conference.
Los Angeles County has seen 256 new cases in the past two days. The county had 662 cases as of Tuesday, and a total of 11 people have so far died in the county of COVID-19.
The USA Today reports that 42 percent of all coronavirus cases in the county are with people age 18-40, a greater percentage than a report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last week, which found that one in five cases in the United States were with people ages 20 to 44.
The CDC reported that nine of the 44 deaths that the agency knew about were people between ages 20 and 64. The report found no minor who had died at that time.
Still, the county has recorded a higher percentage of coronavirus cases with older residents, which is consistent with the CDC findings.
“This virus is impacting the entire population, and it’s something the entire population should be responding to,” Dr. Wayne Tsuang, a pulmonary and critical care physician at the Cleveland Clinic told USA TODAY.
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Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti told residents to brace for the worse in the next six to 12 days and that a greater number of casualties are coming.
Garcetti said L.A. could be eventually facing numbers similar to New York City, according to The Los Angeles Times.
“It’s coming,” Garcetti told The Times. “The peak is not here yet. The peak will be bad. People will lose their lives.”