LOS ANGELES (AP) – California hospitals have run out of intensive care beds for patients with COVID-19, ambulances are backing up outside of emergency rooms, and patient triage stores are increasing as l nation ‘s most populous state emerges latest epicenter of US outbreak.
On Thursday, California reported a staggering 52,000 new cases in a single day, equal to the U.S. average in mid-October, and a one-day record of 379 deaths. More than 16,000 people are in the hospital with coronavirus across the state, more than three times as many as a month ago.
“I’ve seen more deaths in the last nine months in my ICU than in all of my twenty-year career,” said Amy Arlund, a nurse at Kaiser Permanente Fresno Medical Center.
Although the rising virus has pushed hospitals in any part of the country to the breaking point in recent weeks, the crisis is deepening at an alarming rate in California, even at the time of the outbreak. vaccine against COVID-19 nationwide this week and the imminent release of a second vaccine raised hopes of finally defeating the scourge.
The capacity of the intensive care unit is less than 1% in many California counties and the morgue space is also running out, in what increasingly resembles last spring’s disaster in the city. of New York.
Patients are being cared for at various overflow locations, including a former NBA arena in Sacramento, a former prison, and a college gym. Waiting places include a vacant Sears building in Riverside County.
At the St. Mary, in the Apple Valley of Southern California, patients are picked out with tents and the hospital placed temporary walls in the lobby to give more space to treat those with COVID-19. Patients are also being treated in the aisles of the gornelles or chairs, sometimes for days, because there is no other place to put them, said Randall Castillo, chief executive of the hospital.
Dr. Nasim Afsar, director general of operations at UCI Health in Orange County, described a bewilderment of patients, many of whom stopped waiting in the emergency room until a bed was opened elsewhere. from the hospital.
“Every day we work and discharge the right number of people, and the next day all those beds are refilled,” he said.
Dr. Denise Whitfield, an emergency physician at Harbor Medical Center-UCLA, said ambulance crews are waiting to see patients.
“Over the last nine months we have been dealing with this COVID pandemic, I can say that it has been the worst I have seen in terms of our ability to care for our patients,” he said.
The virus has killed more than 300,000 Americans, and the nation averages more than 2,500 deaths and more than 215,000 new cases a day. Nationally, the number of patients in the hospital with COVID-19 has risen to an all-time high of more than 113,000.
Across the country, other hospitals are also parking patients in emergency rooms because ICU beds have been exhausted and they are also transporting adults to pediatric hospitals and incorporating staff from outside the state to care for patients in wards.
Doctors are forced to make difficult decisions. Some hospitals send lower-risk COVID-19 patients home with oxygen and monitors to release beds for the seriously ill.
Some states are preparing for the possibility of rationing care if hospitals collapse further. If a hospital does not have enough ventilators, for example, doctors would have to make the agonizing decision of which patients should take them.
Last week, Idaho’s top public health leaders paved the way for the state to resort to rationing – or to impose what are called crisis care standards – if necessary. Hospitals should reserve scarce and potentially life-saving resources for patients most likely to survive.
In Texas, many intensive care units are full or approaching. On Wednesday, authorities reported that they had just over 700 ICU beds open statewide.
A St. Louis, where intensive care units are about 90 percent, hospitals have had to double the number of patients in ICU wards and remove nurses from the operating room so they can help those who were seriously ill, Dr. Alex said. Garza, head of the working group on the Sant Lluís metropolitan pandemic.
Garza said overworked health workers can only keep it up for so long: “You’re going to burn them or I’ll make them sick or something will happen.”
California hospitalizations are now double the summer peak. The state has incorporated more than 500 additional troops and deployed them statewide, although most do not have the necessary skills to assist ICUs. The state is looking for a total of 3,000 hired medical staff.
The Fresno County Hospital System is under so much pressure that officials hired an external team of 31 doctors, nurses and support staff to help treat patients in a temporary ward.
In the Great Valley of Central Valley, where hospital space is declining rapidly, health officials say the region’s Latino and migrant agricultural workers are burdened by a lack of access to transportation and health; higher disease rates, distrust of medicine; crowded homes; and jobs that don’t allow people to work from home.
“They are front-line workers, they work in our grocery stores, they work in sanitation. They can’t stay home. They don’t have the luxury of working from home, “said Dr. Piero Garzaro, an infectious disease specialist at Kaiser Permanente Central Valley.” How can you be isolated when you live in a 1,000-square-foot apartment when there are five people, including the grandpa and grandma? “
___
Richer reported from Boston. Associated Press reporters Amy Taxin of Orange County, Haven Daley and Olga R. Rodriguez of San Francisco and Paul Weber of Austin, Texas contributed to the report.