By Jorge Casuso

April 12, 2021 -- Santa Monica saw confirmed coronavirus cases dip last week to 45, from an average of 56 weekly cases over the past month, according to Los Angeles County Health data.

Meanwhile, the number of virus-related deaths dropped from an average of nearly seven weekly deaths to two last week. It takes about two weeks to report a coronavirus-related death.

As of Sunday, there was a total of 4,687 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the city of some 93,000 and 181 virus-related deaths, according to County data.

The weekly drop in COVID-19 cases and related deaths comes as the average number of daily cases across the county dropped below the levels registered when the coronavirus pandemic was beginning one year ago, health officials said.

According to County data, the seven-day average number of daily new cases remains at 400 per day for the week ending April 4 -- down from 606 daily cases on April 4, 2020.

To date, Public Health identified 1,226,191 positive cases of COVID-19 across the County of more than 10 million and a total of 23,479 deaths.

On Sunday, there were 470 patients with COVID-19 hospitalized, down from a peak of some 8,000 daily hospitalizations in early January, according to County data.

Nationwide, the number of confirmed coronavirus cases has been slowly increasing, while the number of virus-related deaths continues a steady three-month drop, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC).

Last week, there was an average of 64,152 daily new cases across the nation of some 336 million, a 2 percent increase over the daily average the previous week, according to CDC data.

Still, it marks a significant drop from a peak of 249,697 average daily cases in the first week of the year, according to the CDC.

Despite the increase in cases, the daily average number of coronavirus-related deaths nationwide "has generally decreased for the past 12 weeks," CDC officials said.

On April 7, the seven-day average of daily new deaths was 711, a nearly 21 percent decrease compared with the prior seven-day average, and a dramatic drop from a peak of 3,409 daily deaths on January 13, according to the CDC.

Meanwhile, the City continues to deploy its "Emergency Order Compliance Group" -- composed of code enforcement officers and health ambassadors -- seven days a week to enforce some of the strictest health orders in the nation.

To date, there have been 234 citations issued to local businesses and 308 stop work orders issued at construction sites, according to City data.

The City has issued 104 face covering citations, which carry fines of up to $500 for patrons and $1,000 for businesses, and ejected more than 1,100 customers from local businesses.

The enforcement teams have had 66,753 interactions with local businesses and 39,232 face covering interactions, according to City data.

County Health officials have issued citations to six local businesses for violating health orders.

They are FIA Restaurant, Casa Martin, Del Frisco's Grill, Church Hilll Boxing Club, Double Ops Functional Training and SugaringLA, a personal care business.

As of April 9, a total of 30,115 Santa Monica residents had been vaccinated, health officials said.