COVID-19: Group Approves Modern Vaccine for Use in California as Hospitals Struggle

Los Angeles: A working group of scientists and experts endorsed the COVID-19 vaccine developed by Moderna and the National Institutes of Health on Sunday, paving the way for it to be distributed in California and much of the West.

The group, initially made up of California and later joined by Nevada, Oregon and Washington, reviewed the vaccine separately from the US Food and Drug Administration, which issued an emergency use authorization on Friday. The group made its recommendation to the governors of the four states on Sunday morning, authorities said in a press release.

Shipments of the vaccine are expected to arrive in California earlier this week, authorities said.

“While California is in some of the darkest days of our surge in COVID-19, with too many families grieving the loss of loved ones, there is light as more vaccines are approved for distribution,” said the Governor. Gavin Newsom in a statement.

California has already received shipments of the vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech, which were intended for intensive care hospital workers and residents of long-term care facilities.

The vaccine is not expected to be available to the general public until spring or summer.

Experts say that’s not early enough to prevent a catastrophe in the region’s hospitals, which have been struggling as they fill with COVID-19 patients. There were 16,843 COVID-19 patients in California hospitals on Saturday, with 3,614 of them in intensive care, according to data released by the state on Sunday. That was a big increase from two months earlier, when there were 2,291 such patients, 657 of them in intensive care.

The availability of beds in intensive care units in Southern California and the San Joaquin Valley remained at zero Sunday, according to the state.

Los Angeles County hospitals were treating the largest proportion of patients – 5,709, with 1,175 of them in intensive care.

Patient volume is only expected to increase as new cases of the coronavirus are growing faster than at any other time during the pandemic and often taking two to three weeks to result in hospitalization.

Los Angeles County public health officials announced Sunday that the county had surpassed 600,000 total cases of the virus, a concerning development given just eight days after the county reached 500,000 cases.

By comparison, Los Angeles County surpassed 200,000 reported cases of the virus on Aug. 6. 80 days later, the county registered its 300,000th case on October 25.

As the transmission rate began to climb, Los Angeles County reported its 400,000th case 36 days later, on November 30. Just 11 days later, the county surpassed 500,000 cases.

UCLA infectious disease epidemiologist Dr. Tim Brewer said the exponential increase means Los Angeles County is on a dangerous path.

“I have yet to see clear signs that things are slowing down and I am very concerned for the next two months,” he said.

He worries that whatever precautions people are taking now will relax in late December, as people long to be around people on Christmas and New Years, adding another surge to the current one.

UCLA Health is already scheduling a number of infectious disease doctors to be on call at any given time, due to the unprecedented number of COVID-19 patients needing hospitalization, he said. The biggest problem is that hospitals can quickly run out of providers who can manage ICU care and will be forced to recruit doctors from other specialties.

“I have not taken medication in the ICU since I was a resident; you don’t want me to adjust your fan, ”he said. “That is the challenge, actually, it is not so much space, it is personal. They are the doctors, the nurses, the respiratory therapists, all the people trained to do such a specific job that it cannot be taken out of nowhere ”.

New cases, hospitalizations and deaths are increasing more fiercely than in the summer, which was previously the height of the pandemic in Southern California.

The increases reflect a trend seen across the country, posing an additional challenge when it comes to requesting assistance for staff, said Dr. Brad Spellberg, medical director for Los Angeles County Medical Center-USC.

“During the first phase of the increase in cases in the Los Angeles County area, the virus was not simultaneously out of control everywhere, so you could summon people from other counties or out of state,” Spellberg said. “When the entire United States is in crisis, where are you going to find people?”

Healthcare professionals are preparing for the possibility of things getting worse before they get better.

A doctor at a Los Angeles County public hospital said the number of COVID-19 patients is “increasing exponentially with no end in sight.”

Many parts of the hospital are being converted into COVID-19 wards, and ICU teams are staffed with workers from other departments who are temporarily interrupting their services. The doctor said it appears that they will be so thin that in early January they will have to start rationing care.

“We are going to be in New York with the bodies piled up. I wouldn’t be surprised if Los Angeles announced the new year as the COVID capital of the world, “said the doctor, who requested anonymity because the person was not authorized to speak to the media.

“I don’t know how many ways to explain to people to isolate themselves and stay at home before taking a camera to the ICU and the emergency department. [Emergency Department] to show them the mess of what we are experiencing. “

On a welcome and welcome point, hundreds of healthcare workers in Los Angeles County hospitals have received a dose of vaccine so far, and that number was expected to hit about 6,000 by Christmas, authorities said earlier this year. week.

Los Angeles County will reserve the initial allocation of the Moderna vaccine for skilled nursing facility staff and residents, paramedics and frontline paramedics and those who administer the vaccines, public health officials said.