A Los Angeles city worker dies of coronavirus

A Los Angeles city employee has died after being infected with the coronavirus, an aide to Mayor Eric Garcetti said Saturday, part of the growing number of fatalities in the county.

“Unfortunately among the fallen ” is a city employee, Garcetti said Friday. “It wasn’t just lip service that these are going to be tough days. … I love sharing the news of the progress we’re making, but it saddens me deeply that we have lost from our own city family.”

The employee was not identified and officials did not say how the individual contracted the virus. The mayor initially said that two city employees had died.

Alex Comisar, the mayor’s spokesman, revised the number on Saturday but did not immediately give a reason for the discrepancy. He also did not provide any information about where the one city employee worked.

Garcetti said 15 Los Angeles Fire Department employees and 52 Los Angeles Police Department employees have tested positive for COVID-19, the illness caused by the virus, and three remain hospitalized.

The number of confirmed coronavirus infections in Los Angeles County rose to 8,430 on Friday as health officials extended mask-wearing requirements and the local stay-at-home order in a bid to stem the disease’s spread.

The county’s death toll increased by 18, to 241, a 6% increase from the previous day. Of those new victims, 10 were older than 65 years old, seven were between 41 and 65, and one was between 18 and 40, Los Angeles County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer said.

Garcetti said Friday marked the fifth day in a row with a single-digit percentage increase in coronavirus cases from the previous day.

Garcetti also announced that the county’s 22nd testing location opened Friday and that there are plans to open a second walk-in testing site in South L.A. By the end of Friday, more than 37,000 L.A. County residents were projected to have been tested for the virus this week, twice the number of those tested last week.

Times staff writer David Zahniser contributed to this story.