Los Angeles, Nov 20 (IANS): Los Angeles County, the most populous in the US, registered 5,031 new Covid-19 cases in a 24-hour period, marking a new single-day spike record since the onset of the pandemic.

Besides the new cases, the Department of Public Health on Thursday also registered 29 new fatalities, bringing the death toll to 7,363, while the overall caseload has reached 353,232, Xinhua news agency reported.

There have been a total of 8,975 new cases reported over the last two days, said the Department, adding that the county is experiencing "a dangerous acceleration of cases that is increasing at a higher rate than the July surge".

Officials said that there are 1,238 people with Covid-19 currently hospitalized and 28 per cent of them are in the ICU.

The daily hospitalizations in the county have increased nearly every day since November 2, when the number was 777.

"As cases are surging and hospitalizations are increasing, we need to stay home as much as possible, protect those who are elderly or have underlying health conditions, and stop gathering with people not in our households," said the county's Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer.