An ambulance crew waits with a patient outside the emergency room at Coast Plaza Hospital during a wave of coronavirus disease cases (COVID-19) in Los Angeles, California, on December 26, 2020.
David Swanson | Reuters
The Covid-19 outbreak is so bad in Los Angeles County that ambulances have to wait hours to leave patients in the emergency room.
Hospital beds are gathering in gift shops, cafes and conference rooms as hospitals struggle to find any space available for patients.
The Los Angeles County Emergency Medical Services Agency told EMS employees Monday that they would only administer supplemental oxygen if a patient’s saturation levels were reduced below 90% to conserve the supply of oxygen. Paramedics were also told not to transport adult patients with heart attack to the hospital unless they could restore “spontaneous circulation” in situ, to focus care on patients more likely to survive.
Los Angeles is facing an unprecedented increase in coronavirus patients pushing hospitals in the area to the brink. Public health officials warn that the forecast for the situation will get worse in January.
“Many hospitals have reached a crisis point and have to make very difficult decisions about patient care,” Dr. Christina Ghaly, the county’s director of health services, said at a news conference Monday. He urged residents to avoid the emergency room unless they needed serious medical attention.
Hospitals have been expanding to their limits since Decemer, when the capacity of the region’s intensive care unit dropped rapidly to zero, according to state health officials. Currently, more than 8,000 people are hospitalized with the virus in the county and 20% of those people are in intensive care units, according to data collected by the county public health department. With widespread circulation of the virus, public health officials warn that conditions are likely to deteriorate before they improve.
Emergency medical technicians (EMTs) and health workers treat patients outside the emergency room at Huntington Park Community Hospital during an increase in cases of positive coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Huntington Park, California, on December 29, 2020.
Bing Guan | Reuters
Across California, approximately 370 people die from Covid-19 each day, according to a weekly average, an increase of about 46% compared to a week ago, according to a CNBC analysis of data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.
In Los Angeles County, the coronavirus kills someone every 15 minutes on average, County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer said during the briefing Monday. The county on Tuesday surpassed 11,000 total deaths from Covid-19, with 1,000 arriving in less than a week, the public health department said in a statement.
Everyone in the area should assume he will be exposed to the disease every time he leaves home, Ferrer said. One in five people tested for Covid-19 in Los Angeles County has the virus.
“We’re likely to experience the worst conditions in January that we’ve faced in the entire pandemic, and that’s hard to imagine,” Ferrer said. “Case increases are likely to continue over the coming weeks as a result of New Year’s Eve parties and holidays and returning travelers.”
The staff stretched thin
Los Angeles County is still dealing with the spur of Covid-19 spurred since the Thanksgiving holiday and has yet to see cases that will likely follow the late December holiday, Ghaly said. Now hospitals are trying to do “everything possible to prepare.”
Some coronavirus patients are forced to wait more than a day before an intensive care bed is opened for them, Dr. Brad Spellberg, the chief medical officer at County University Medical Center, told CNBC by email. Los Angeles-Southern California. .
A health worker checks patients inside an oxygen store outside the Huntington Park Community Hospital emergency room during an increase in cases of positive coronavirus (COVID-19) in Huntington Park, California, on 29 December 2020
Bing Guan | Reuters
The hospital has had to reassign some of its health workers to treat the influx of ICU patients, meaning there is no time to perform elective surgeries or other life-saving procedures, such as colonoscopies, he said. Spellberg.
Gov. Gavin Newsom said Monday during a news conference that the state has sent medical care teams to the Los Angeles area to help reduce stress in hospitals. However, if there is another increase in cases of Covid-19 after the December holidays, the additional staff will not be enough, Spellberg said.
“Our staff is still widespread, especially in the ICU. No more ICU nurses and doctors can be created,” Spellberg said in an email, where he asked people to follow public health guidelines such as the use masks, physical distancing and avoid crowds.
“They’re crushing us”
The increase comes when California, along with other U.S. states, has begun administering its first Povizer and Moderna Covid-19 vaccine shots.
The state has received just over 2 million doses of vaccines, but only 24% have been administered, according to the state public health department database last updated Wednesday. Newsom said Monday that the process is moving too slowly and that the state “wants things to go much faster.”
Ravina Kullar, a Los Angeles-based infectious disease expert and member of the Infectious Diseases Society of America, told CNBC in a telephone interview that she expects inoculations to accelerate in the coming weeks, although the shots will not work. immediately. Immunity takes a few weeks to build and few are being given to develop a herd immunity that protects the general population.
“I think we will see some kind of stability, decrease and decrease in cases, but it will only take time,” Kullar said. “I think it will take until spring, summer, to really see an impact.”
Kullar, who works in long-term care centers and nursing homes in Los Angeles, said all the facilities he works with are battling a Covid-19 outbreak. These residents, along with health care workers, will be the first in line to receive vaccines in California as they develop, Newsom said, adding that there are about 3 million people in the first phase of vaccination. state.
“They’re crushing us,” Kullar said. “We have a very short staff. I’m exhausted, my teammates are exhausted. Here’s a very tough situation.”
– Associated Press contributed to this report.