MANAGING COVID-19 OUTBREAKS IN LOS ANGELES COUNTY

About the Program

Category: Health (Best in Category)

Year: 2022

The emergence of COVID-19 in 2020 brought new and extraordinary public health challenges across the world. Los Angeles County – a jurisdiction with more than 10 million residents in a region of over 4,000 square miles – was without exception, as it faced its own challenges to stop the devastating losses brought on by the novel Coronavirus pandemic. In response to escalating COVID-19 outbreaks, the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health (LAC DPH) established an Outbreak Management Branch (OMB) under its Incident Command Structure during Spring of 2020. In this branch, OMB staff provide guidance and requirements on infection control, facilitate the enforcement of Health Officer Orders, and disseminate best practices and recommendations to help outbreak sites stop the further spread of the virus. This newly formed entity had to work quickly to build its organizational structure and expand its workforce capacity to support a highly technical and coordinated effort to control outbreaks across high-risk communities. To date, OMB has managed nearly 6,000 outbreaks across various settings and conditions, helping to protect the health of adults and children across the county of Los Angeles. OMB’s effort is estimated to have avoided an economic loss burden of at least $193,000,000.00 thus far.