With the dizzying increase in coronavirus hospitalizations in several states, the hardest hit counties in Arizona and Texas are preparing for the worst by bringing refrigerated trucks as the morgues fill up.
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Medical staff wearing full PPE pushes a stretcher with a deceased patient into a car outside the Covid-19 intensive care unit at United Memorial Medical Center on June 30, 2020 in Houston, Texas.
The US coronavirus outbreak affected nearly 3.5 million total infections Thursday morning and more than 137,000 reported deaths, according to a count by Johns Hopkins University.
Thirty-nine states reported an increase in the number of new cases in the previous week. California, Florida, Arizona, and Texas have become states to watch how increasing cases of coronavirus lead to a shortage of hospital beds.
In Arizona’s Maricopa County, which has the majority of Covid-19 cases in the state, the medical examiner’s office has ordered four coolers and additional ones are expected in the coming days, said Fields Moseley, the county spokesman. . The medical examiner’s morgue had a total of 156 people dead, with an augmentation capacity of just over 200, Moseley said Wednesday.
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Dr. David de la Zerda (C) listens to the Florida Governor during a press conference to address the increase in coronavirus cases in the state.
It is unclear how many of the deaths are related to the coronavirus: The county has said that deaths increase in the summer due to the heat.
“Because we reached that augmentation capacity, multiple phone calls were made to funeral homes across the county to try to assess their ability to ensure that the bodies were removed in a timely manner,” Moseley said.
Two Texas counties, Cameron and Hidalgo, share a large refrigerated trailer to store the bodies of patients with coronavirus due to lack of space in the morgues. San Antonio officials have also said they are requesting refrigerated trucks.
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Chairs sit stacked inside a closed bar in Austin, Texas.
“I am pleading with everyone in our forest, help us do our part, people’s lives are at stake, not only sick people, but also doctors, nurses who work to the bone, EMS staff, transportation of people”. Cameron County Judge Eddie Treviño Jr. told CNN affiliate KVEO.
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Officials seek options as hospitals fill up
As infections increase, officials across the country are rushing to issue restrictions again.
Gov. Brian Kemp has extended Georgia’s emergency coronavirus restrictions and said that while people are “highly recommended” to cover their faces, they are not necessary. The order, which expires on July 31, limits public meetings to 50 people and requires social distancing.
But his order also prevents local governments from enforcing stricter rules than those of the state, including requiring face masks.
The state reported 417 additional hospitalizations, nearly double the total on Tuesday, and is turning a large convention center in downtown Atlanta into a possible overflow hospital.
California, the most populous state in the country, set two more records on Wednesday with maximums for ICU admissions and hospitalizations.
The state announced 11,126 new cases, with a total of 6,786 Covid-19 positive hospital patients and 1,907 ICU patients. And in Los Angeles County, the director of public health warned that there is likely to be another order to stay home.
“We cannot remove anything from the table, there is absolutely no certainty of what will happen exactly next,” said Dr. Barbara Ferrer.
California met its goal of having 10,000 contact trackers statewide by July 1, but Health and Human Services Agency Secretary Dr. Mark Ghaly said it is not enough to handle the rush of coronavirus cases .
“We didn’t build the first contact tracking program at this level of transmission,” said Dr. Ghaly. “Locals and states across the country have recognized the need to be the target of some of our contacts at this time.”
Florida reported 301,810 positive cases statewide Wednesday with 19,334 people hospitalized. More than 50 hospitals have reached the capacity of the intensive care unit and show zero beds available, according to data published by the Agency for Health Care Administration (AHCA). Eight of those hospitals are in Miami-Dade County.
In South Texas, hospitals in Laredo are full and the federal government is turning a hotel into a health care center.
Arizona health officials announced that they will bring in nearly 600 critical care and medical-surgical nurses from other states to help improve their internal surge plans to fill the staff gaps.
“Covid-19 hospitalizations in Arizona have increased with hospitals reporting nearly 3,500 inpatients and more than 900 patients in their intensive care units,” the Arizona Department of Health Services said in a statement.
Public health experts say the end of the pandemic remains out of sight, and several states have taken steps to require the use of masks.
Alabama and Montana said they are required in public. In Montana, face linings are required in certain indoor group settings where more than 50 people gather and social distancing is not possible. More than 30 states now have mandates to cover their faces in public.
And in Oklahoma, Governor Kevin Stitt said he tested positive for Covid-19 the same day the state reported a record number of new cases.
Stitt attended President Donald Trump’s campaign rally in Tulsa last month and was seen in the crowd without a mask. But according to contact tracing, state health officials said they did not contract coronavirus at the rally.
There were 22,813 total cases in the state, 1,075 more than Tuesday, health officials said. At least 561 people are hospitalized due to the virus.
Governor promotes questionable investigation
Hit hard by a surge in coronavirus cases, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis applauded the positive antibody test results, calling it a “good sign.” But scientists disagree.
Antibody tests determine if a person had Covid-19 in the past, after the infection disappeared. “That creates resistance in terms of the disease’s ability to spread,” Republican DeSantis said at a press conference.
However, researchers, including the World Health Organization, have repeatedly said that there is no evidence to show that previous infection and the development of antibodies make someone immune to future infections.
Last week, a study by the Spanish government suggested that antibodies to the coronavirus drop after a few weeks. A smaller British study published before the peer review suggests that the antibody response may start to decline within a month.
And the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have echoed a similar sentiment. “We don’t know how much protection antibodies can provide or how long this protection can last,” she says on her website.
More deaths expected
Thousands more Americans will die from the virus before a vaccine is developed, according to an influential model.
The University of Washington Institute for Health Assessment and Measurement model projects that 224,000 people will die from the virus by Nov. 1, an increase from nearly 16,000 the week before.
That jump is due to the shooting cases across the country, particularly in Florida, Texas, Arizona, California, Louisiana, Kentucky, Mississippi, Nevada, New Mexico, South Carolina, Tennessee and Utah, said Dr. Chris Murray, president. of the IHME.
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