LOS ANGELES (AP) – California became the first state to record 2 million confirmed cases of coronavirus, reaching the milestone on Christmas Eve, as almost the entire state was under a strict order of permanence at home.
Governor Gavin Newsom warned that hospitalizations could soon double if people do not change their behavior over the holidays.
A Johns Hopkins University count showed that the country’s most populous state has recorded 2,010,157 infections since January. At least 23,635 people have died from the virus.
The first COVID-19 case in California was confirmed on January 25th. It took 292 days to reach a million infections on November 11th.
Just 44 days later, the figure topped 2 million.
The California Department of Public Health separately counted 2,003,146 cases and a one-day stroke of 39,070 infections, which was less than a one-day high of nearly 54,000 cases by mid-month. The number of deaths in the state rose by 351, also down from the record set last week. Another 427 people were hospitalized, bringing the total to 18,875. The 3,962 in intensive care units were a record, as was the number of hospitalized.
“We are projecting that our hospital number will double in the next 30 days and our projections have become much more solid,” Newsom said in a video posted on its social media pages from his home, where remains quarantined for the second time after a potential exposure. “I’m afraid, but we’re not victims if we change our behavior.”
The California infection rate, in terms of number of cases per 100,000 people, is lower than the US average. But its nearly 40 million residents mean the outbreak outnumbers many other states.
The crisis is straining the state medical system far beyond its normal capacity, causing hospitals to treat patients in tents, offices and auditoriums.
“In most hospitals, about half of all beds are full of patients with COVID and half of all ICU beds are full of patients with COVID, and two-thirds of these patients are suffocating due to the inflammation in the lungs caused by the virus, “said Dr. Christina Ghaly, director of the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services.
“They drown to the point that they can no longer breathe on their own and have to make someone put a tube down their throat to oxygenate their organs. Many of these people will not live until 2021, ”he said.
The county on Thursday reported new records of deaths (148 in a single day) and hospitalizations, about 6,500 people, 20 percent of them in the ICU.
The state has seen its number of cases increase exponentially in recent weeks, fueled in large part by people who ignored the warnings and held traditional Thanksgiving meetings, health officials say.
“Our systems are overflowing and the virus is spreading everywhere,” said a coalition of 10 local health departments in Southern California in what they called an urgent holiday message. “We cannot continue on our current path without facing serious consequences.”
The Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in Los Angeles was planning interior Masses on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, with Archbishop José Gómez leading two of the four services, despite warning in a letter to priests and pastors on Wednesday that it is safer to continue to celebrate outdoor masses.
Dozens of physically spaced worshipers took off their masks just to take armed communion with the clergy, and there was no chant for health officials to warn that the spread could increase.
Father David Gallardo kept a copy of the children’s book “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” in a mid-afternoon service while teaching that “darkness does not win,” comparing the coronavirus to the Grinch.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Circuit’s Ninth Court of Appeals declined to lift orders from lower courts blocking Christmas services at Pasadena and Chula Vista churches, though lawyers said they would seek intervention in the United States Supreme Court.
Los Angeles County health officials said emphatically in a statement that “attending an internal service will result in the transmission of COVID-19 … which the health system cannot manage at this time.”
Among the new warnings, the state’s medical system will be overwhelmed and unable to provide adequate care if people do not avoid meeting on vacation or at least take precautions such as meeting outside with masks at a safe distance. or open the windows and turn on the fans. if they are inside.
California Hospital Association President and CEO Carmela Coyle said the two million count “means thousands of Californians will spend this vacation in a hospital. On Christmas night, Californians can still make the decision to ‘avoid unnecessary travel and meetings on Christmas Day’.
In an infrequent ray of hope, a statistical model that state officials have used to project hospitalizations predicts more than 71,000 patients in a month, still an unsustainable number four times the current number of patients, but about 40,000 less than s ‘had projected the same model. a few days ago.
The rate of transmission (the number of people infecting an infected person in turn) has decreased for almost two weeks and is approaching the point that it would cause fewer infections of each person contracting the virus.
In addition, the positive case rate reached a new high of 12.4% over a two-week period, but began to decline over the past seven days, from a peak of 13.3% to 12.6%. The seven-day rate was 12.1% on Thursday.
“Some encouraging signs, in this regard, seem to be some stabilization of the growth rate,” Newsom said on Thursday. But he said this contrasts with growing cases and deaths.
Newsom on Wednesday credited home stay orders for almost the entire state that imposed an overnight curfew, closed many businesses and restricted most businesses to 20% capacity. Restaurants can only be taken away.
Petitions to avoid social gatherings for the Christmas and New Year holidays sounded with special despair in Southern California. Los Angeles County leads the rise, accounting for a third of the state’s COVID-19 cases and nearly 40 percent of deaths.
Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti called Wednesday “perhaps the darkest day in our city’s history,” as the county recorded the highest number of single-day deaths and hospitalizations: 145 deaths and more than 6,000 people in hospitals. More than 9,000 people have died from coronavirus in the county.
If Los Angeles County continues to experience the same growth in COVID-19 infections in the next two weeks, hospitals may be forced to ration due to a lack of medical staff, Garcetti said.
“That means doctors will be forced to determine who lives and who dies,” he said.
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Thompson reported from Sacramento. Associated Press writer Stefanie Dazio and AP photographer Ashley Landis in Los Angeles contributed to this story.