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Two people die from Covid-19 every hour in California’s most populous county as the state sets daily records of recently reported cases and deaths and hospitals struggle to keep up with the surge in coronavirus patients.
Most California residents are under a stay-at-home order due to the decreased capacity of the intensive care unit where they live. Los Angeles County, home to 10 million people, has 2,500 ICU beds, but in a month it could easily need many more, said Dr. Christina Ghaly, the county’s director of health services.
“Hospitals are under siege and our models show no end in sight,” he said.
Jae C. Hong / AP
EMT Giselle Dorgalli, second from right, looks at a monitor while performing chest compression on a patient who tested positive for coronavirus in a hospital emergency room in Los Angeles, USA.
Southern California and the Central Valley, regions that together include 23 counties, had exhausted their regular supply of intensive care beds and many medical centers were taking advantage of their “augmentation” capacity.
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California averages more than 35,000 new coronavirus cases a day. Health officials estimate that 12 percent of them (4,200) end up in hospitals. Records were set Wednesday, with 53,711 new cases and 293 deaths statewide.
Damian Dovarganes / AP
Hospitals are filling up so fast that officials are implementing mobile field facilities and fighting to hire more doctors and nurses.
The massive spike in infections began in October and is largely attributed to people ignoring safety measures and socializing with others. More recently, health officials said they have seen cases stemming from gatherings during the Thanksgiving holidays and have pleaded with residents to avoid meeting with people from other households during Christmas and New Years.
Health officials in Southern California’s Orange County issued an order Wednesday preventing hospitals from diverting ambulances to other medical centers. Dr. Carl Schultz of the county Health Care Agency said ambulances may have run out of hospitals to carry their patients.
“Therefore, we temporarily suspended the diversion of ambulances. While this will put additional stress on hospitals, it will spread throughout the county and help mitigate the growing concern of finding hospital destinations for ambulances, “Schultz said in a statement.
Jeremy Zoch, executive director of Providence St Joseph Hospital in Orange, said nurses, respiratory therapists and housekeepers have been taking extra shifts to help during the crush. Registry nurses and travelers have arrived and officials are talking with a nearby children’s hospital about using the extra space to care for patients, he said.
Jae C. Hong / AP
Ventilation tubes are attached to a Covid-19 patient at Providence Holy Cross Medical Center in the Mission Hills section of Los Angeles.
“He has challenged us. So each of our units that we have at our disposal, we have been redesigning and using them to care for Covid patients, “Zoch told reporters. “It’s really a challenge for us on the capacity front. Our ICUs are almost full. “
Also in Orange County, UCI Health plans to add a 50-bed mobile field unit by Christmas.
Hospitals administered the first Pfizer vaccines to healthcare workers this week when a pair of state advisory committees began making potential life-and-death decisions about who is next in line to receive the rare vaccines. The committees are considering whether groups such as teachers, farm workers, grocery workers, transportation drivers and news reporters should be among them.
On Wednesday, California announced that the San Francisco Bay Area would join three of the state’s five regions already under a state-mandated stay-at-home order, as available beds in the ICU fell below 15 percent. The Greater Sacramento, San Joaquin Valley and Southern California regions are already under Governor Gavin Newsom’s command, closing businesses, including nail and nail salons and movie theaters, and severely limiting retail operations.
Jae C. Hong / AP
California reported more than 50,000 new coronavirus cases and 293 deaths on December 16.
The Northern California region, which includes Humboldt, Lake and Mendocino counties, is not affected for now.
Many of the Bay Area counties had already enforced the order as a precautionary measure, and those that had not now should do so by Thursday.
In Santa Clara County, which had already enforced closure rules, reported infections are more than 1,000 a day, compared to 300 in July, said Dr. Marty Fenstersheib, the county’s testing director.
“We are not out of the woods yet,” he said.
Barbara Ferrer, director of public health for Los Angeles County, the most populous in the state, said transmission of the virus is rampant, noting that two people die every hour in the county.
“We are experiencing an explosive and very deadly surge,” Ferrer said.
