In a Texas city, the federal government is going to turn a hotel into what is called an emergency hospital.
In Georgia, the governor said the state is working tirelessly to prevent a shortage of hospital beds.
The head of a hospital system in Miami-Dade County, Florida, told CNN that they plan to convert some regular rooms to others that can handle more severe coronavirus patients if growth continues in cases.
Carlos Migoya said the situation is “very, very tight” at Jackson Health System, but they have stopped doing elective surgeries to help save the beds.
“This room is not going to last forever,” if the numbers continue to rise, he said.
There are 54 hospitals in Florida that have reached intensive care unit capacity and show zero beds available, according to data released by the Agency for Health Care Administration. Ten of those hospitals are in Miami-Dade County.
Another 40 hospitals show ICUs with an available capacity of 10% or less, according to the agency’s data.
In South Texas, hospitals in Laredo are full, city health authority Dr. Victor Trevino told the city council on Tuesday.
This week, a team from the Federal Emergency Management Agency will arrive to turn a hotel into an emergency hospital to treat Covid-19 patients, said acting fire chief and emergency management coordinator Ramiro Elizondo, at the council meeting.
The site will provide 106 beds and help expand the hospital’s capacity for non-ICU patients, he said.
Georgia officials said the state has 417 people with coronavirus in hospitals, more than 200 more than Tuesday’s total.
As the number of Covid-19 cases increases, Governor Brian Kemp said on Twitter that his state is “working 24 hours to improve the capacity of bed augmentation in the hospital” and urged residents to use a mask and practice social distancing.
Kemp has said the state will once again turn the large convention center in downtown Atlanta into a potential overflow hospital.
California continues to see record numbers
The country’s most populous state set two more records on Wednesday, posting maximums for hospitalizations and admissions in the ICU. There are a total of 6,786 hospitalized patients with Covid-19 positives and 1,907 patients in the ICU in California.
The state also announced 11,126 new cases, the second most it has ever had.
The largest number of cases is in Los Angeles County, where the county director of public health warned that another order to stay home might be possible.
“We cannot remove anything from the table, there is absolutely no certainty of what will happen exactly next,” said Dr. Barbara Ferrer.
While another order to stay home is “absolutely not” preferable, he explained that it is an option that should be kept on the table if it is clear that the health care system will be overwhelmed.
“We have to do everything possible to protect the health system for everyone,” said Dr. Ferrer.
The increase in cases was “inevitable”, says Fauci
While New York and New Jersey were the first virus hotspots, California, Florida, Arizona and Texas have become the states to watch, said Dr. Anthony Fauci, the country’s leading infectious disease doctor.
Fauci, a member of the White House coronavirus task force, said on Wednesday that “the inevitable happened” after the United States attempted to reopen and saw “photos and photos and movies of people in bars without masks, gathering in crowds.”
The country’s “baseline” was around 20,000 new cases per day when the reopening began.
“The problem is that since we started our baseline so high, that we tried to open up, you saw that there was a lot of variation in how it was done,” he said. Cases started to increase, “and now we are close to 60,000. That is unsustainable. We have to change that, and that is really the problem that we have to address right now.”
On Wednesday, several states took steps to promote the use of masks.
Alabama and Montana said they are required in public. Alabama Governor Kay Ivey’s term is part of a more secure amended home order that her office announced. In Montana, Governor Steve Bullock said facial coatings are mandatory in certain indoor commercial settings for counties with four or more active Covid-19 cases and in outdoor group settings where more than 50 people gather and the social distancing.
Educator says coworkers worry about the deaths of students and teachers
An elementary school teacher in California’s Orange County told CNN that her colleagues are extremely concerned after the county Board of Education voted this week to return children to schools without facial masks or social distancing.
Denise Bradford, a teacher in the Saddleback Valley Unified School District, told CNN’s Brianna Keilar: “We are creatures of habit. We like our routines. We miss our children terribly. We lay awake at night wondering if they are okay. How horrible Is one of the things on the list having a plan for students and teachers to die? “
Bradford said teachers in his district are concerned about the possibility of becoming infected with the virus that has claimed more than 7,000 lives in California and says they cannot return to school until it is safe.
Orange County Supervisor Don Wagner, who was on the 11-person County Board of Education panel that voted for the school guidelines, told CNN that he believes facial masks should be “optional” for children in schools and that is a decision “every individual district school needs to do.”
Despite the vote, many of the county’s 28 school districts will not adhere to the board’s guidance. CNN has contacted or reviewed district information. Of the districts that responded or posted plans online, more than half, none said they would return children to school without masks or social distancing.
The predictions of fatalities increase by the increase
Before the development of any vaccine, thousands more Americans will die from the virus, according to an influential model.
The University of Washington Institute for Health Measurement and Assessment model now projects that 224,000 people will die from the virus by Nov. 1, representing an increase of nearly 16,000 from the previous week.
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 IHME President Dr. Chris Murray, Don from CNN Limón.
On Wednesday, Florida reported 301,810 positive cases statewide, an increase of 10,181 cases from the previous day, according to new numbers released by the Florida Department of Health. A total of 19,334 people are currently hospitalized across the state.
Oklahoma Governor has Covid-19
Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt announced Wednesday that he tested positive for Covid-19, and 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, the Oklahoma State Department of Health says the governor did not contract coronavirus at the rally. .
The Oklahoma State Department of Health said Wednesday that there were 22,813 total cases in the state, 1,075 more than Tuesday. The previous daily record of 993 new cases was set on Tuesday. There are currently 561 people hospitalized due to the virus.
CNN’s Kay Jones, Elizabeth Stuart, Sarah Moon, Amanda Watts, Joe Sutton, Jason Hoffman, Jennifer Henderson, Molly Silverman, Raja Razek and Jenn Selva contributed to this report.
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