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By Jorge Casuso

January 19, 2022 -- There were two coronavirus-related deaths in Santa Monica last week, bringing the total number of residents who have died with the virus to 200, according to data from County Public Health.

The milestone was reached one year after Santa Monica reported its 100th virus-related death during the week of January 18, 2021.

The new deaths come amid signs the swelling wave of cases triggered by the highly contagious Omicron variant seems to be slowly retreating in both the city and nationwide.

There were 1,644 cases reported in Santa Monica over the past eight days, down from a record of 1,902 over the previous seven days.

The two reported deaths likely took place late last month or early this month, since deaths typically take two weeks to confirm.

They are part of a trend that has seen the seven-day rolling average for daily COVID-related deaths rising in the U.S. since mid-November, before the Omicron variant began sweeping across the nation.

The rising trend is reflected in LA County, where 66 deaths were reported on Saturday, the highest daily toll since 74 deaths were reported on April 2.

“As deaths often lag behind surges in cases and hospitalizations, sadly, the increase in deaths does not come as a surprise and tragically, we are prepared for even higher number of deaths in the coming weeks," said County Health Director Barbara Ferrer.

It is unknown what portion of the new deaths are among those infected with the Omicron, as opposed to the deadlier Delta variant.

But County Health officials note that most of the 293 deaths reported last week "are associated with individuals who became infected after December 20 when Omicron was circulating widely."

The weekly deaths, however, remain far fewer than the record totals reported last January, when daily deaths routinely exceeded 200 and reached a record 318 on January 8.

Meanwhile, the number of cases driven by Omicron have jumped from a total of 8,809 confirmed cases two months ago to 278,114 cases last week -- a more than 3,000 percent leap.

The skyrocketing number of cases have prompted some media outlets and health officials to downplay the case numbers and focus instead on hospitalizations.

Over the past week, daily admissions Countywide increased by 9.5 percent over the previous week -- from 588 to 644 patients, according to County data.

On Monday, there were 4,564 people hospitalized with COVID, but of those, some 60 percent were admitted for unrelated reasons, Ferrer said.

“Many of the COVID positive patients hospitalized are seeking hospital care for non-COVID related health issue, such as care for chronic conditions including heart or kidney disease,” Ferrer said.

“Because all patients are tested for COVID on admission, the increase in hospitalizations reflects the higher rates of community spread.”

Of the number of of patients with COVID who were hospitalized on Monday, about 1,400 were in the ICU, according to County data.

There are approximately 17,000 licensed non-ICU beds and 2,500 licensed ICU beds in the County's 70 designated 9-1-1 receiving hospitals, based on hospitals' daily self-report.

As of Wednesday, Public Health had identified a total 2,343,821 positive cases of COVID-19 across the County of more than 10 million.

Testing results were available for more than 10,725,900 individuals, with 20 percent testing positive, health officials said.