A.M. Brief: SoCal Hospitals Brace for Surge As Holidays Approach

Hospitals are bracing for the worst of the pandemic, restaurants are closing for in-person dining right before Thanksgiving, and the Southern California housing market doesn’t seem to care about any of it. Finally, some details on what the LAPD budget cuts will actually affect. Here is your news. Take it!

Morning News Rundown

The hospital resource situation in Southern California is becoming more perilous. Last week, the number of hospitalized COVID-19 patients rose 40% in Los Angeles County, 45% in San Bernardino County, and 34% in Riverside County. According to reporting by the L.A. Times, healthcare professionals are growing anxious as the holidays approach. Experts warn that the millions of Americans planning to travel will only make the infection spread worse. [L.A. Times]

Speaking of holiday travel, an estimated 1 million people passed through American airports on Friday. That’s 1.5 million fewer than the Friday before Thanksgiving in 2019, but it’s still the second-highest number of single-day airline travelers since March 17. [ABC 7]

The 5-day average of new COVID-19 infections in L.A. County has exceeded 4,000 cases. And so, as promised, L.A. Public Health issued a new order yesterday that bans restaurants, breweries, wineries, and bars from serving customers in-person starting Wednesday, Nov. 25 at 10 p.m. If infection levels exceed a 5-day average of 4,500 new cases per day, Public Health will issue another Stay-at-Home order. [We Like L.A.]

If you thought the pandemic might provide a moment of pause for people buying residential real estate in Los Angeles, you’d be wrong. In the last fiscal quarter, the L.A. metro area experienced the second-highest number of residential purchase mortgage originations in the country. [Bloomberg]

This past weekend, the City of Los Angeles recorded its 300th murder of the year, the most homicides reported citywide in over a decade. [NBC Los Angeles]

We know that the LAPD’s budget will be reduced by $150 million over the next year, but what will that affect? According to LAPD Chief Michel Moor, several services and investigative units (including the animal cruelty unit and the sex crimes unit) will either be cut back or scrapped altogether. The targeted personnel reductions will come via retirement as opposed to layoffs. [LA Mag]