Two people are dying of Covid-19 every hour in Los Angeles county, as California smashed its previous daily record for deaths and hospitals struggle to keep up with the surge of coronavirus patients.
Most California residents are under a stay-at-home order as California battles a deadly surge in Covid-19 cases and intensive care unit capacity across the state dwindles.
Two people are dying every hour in the county, said Barbara Ferrer, the public health director for the county. “We’re experiencing an explosive and very deadly surge,” she said.
On Thursday, authorities reported that 379 had died of the virus in the state, a new one-day record. Meanwhile, more than 52,000 new cases were also confirmed in the last day.
The staggering new figures mean California has seen more than 1,000 deaths in the last five days and nearly 106,000 confirmed cases in just two days.
The pandemic death toll reached 21,860 in California, which has also seen the most cases in the nation with more than 1.7m confirmed.
The rise in cases is presenting unprecedented challenges for the state’s hospitals, and many are running out of capacity to treat the most severely ill patients.
“It’s pretty much all Covid,” said Arlene Brion, a respiratory therapist at Fountain Valley Regional hospital in Orange county, where she is assigned six or seven patients rather than the usual one to three. “There’s probably two areas that are clean but we’re all thinking eventually it’s all going to be Covid.”
Los Angeles county has 2,500 ICU beds but within a month could easily need far more, said Dr Christina Ghaly, the county’s health services director. “Hospitals are under siege and our models show no end in sight,” she said.
Southern California and the Central Valley have exhausted their regular supply of intensive care beds, with many medical centers there tapping into their “surge” capacity. Available ICU beds in the San Francisco Bay Area dropped below 15%. Health officials in southern California’s Orange county issued an order preventing hospitals from diverting ambulances to other medical centers.
Jeremy Zoch, the chief executive at Providence St Joseph Hospital of Orange, said nurses, respiratory therapists and housekeepers have been taking extra shifts to help out during the crush. Registry and traveling nurses have come in and officials are talking to a nearby children’s hospital about using additional space to care for patients, he said.
“It has challenged us. So, every single one of our units that we have available to us, we’ve been redesigning them and utilizing them to care for Covid patients,” Zoch told reporters. “It is really challenging us on the capacity front. Our ICUs are very close to full.”
Health officials expect the crisis to get worse. The massive rise in infections began in October and is being blamed largely on people ignoring safety measures and socializing with others. More recently, health officials said they’ve seen cases stemming from gatherings during the Thanksgiving holiday.
Models indicate that by January, Los Angeles county may have 1,600 to 3,500 Covid-19 patients that require admission to the ICU. Officials are pleading with residents to avoid getting together with people from other households over Christmas and New Year’s.
Hospitals administered the first Pfizer vaccines to healthcare workers this week. And most regions in the state are under a new stay-at-home order to combat the surge. On Wednesday, the state announced the San Francisco Bay Area would join Sacramento, the San Joaquin Valley and Southern California in a state-mandated lockdown.
The new restrictions ban all non-essential travel and require people to stay home and minimize non-essential contact outside their household. It also bans restaurants from both outdoor and indoor dining.
But compliance with the measures varies. Opposition has been particularly strong in rural counties, some of which have long balked at – and at times, defied – any kind of coronavirus restrictions. And they’ve drawn the ire of restaurant owners who say their businesses are already on the brink of collapse.
San Diego county on Wednesday suspended enforcement of the restrictions on restaurants and live entertainment establishments after a local judge found in favor of two strip clubs that defied a state shutdown order and indicated the ruling applied more broadly.
County officials said in a statement Wednesday evening that they and state officials were analyzing the scope of the ruling and discussing next steps, including seeking clarity from the court. “Until we have clarity, we have suspended enforcement activities against restaurants and live entertainment establishments,” the statement said.