Mayor Eric Garcetti said hospital officials tell him and his staff that if Los Angeles continues its upward trend of COVID-19 hospitalizations through Christmas, medical facilities “will be left for below, “meaning they will not be able to adequately treat coronavirus patients or other diseases.
He also said an county-wide emergency order could be issued if hospitals are flooded with patients.
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“Some hospitals may convert non-hospitals (intensive care units) into ICU spaces, but other hospitals may not,” Garcetti said, adding that ambulances must be redirected sometimes if a hospital has capacity.
An emergency statement, he said, could force the county to take stricter measures on businesses and order other closures to make sure “we don’t have to have these distressing views of doctors deciding who gets this last ventilator and who doesn’t “. ‘
Garcetti said that if current trends continue for the next three to five weeks, the county’s health care system “will have nothing left.”
He said an initiative has been launched to provide thousands of Los Angeles residents who need it with $ 300 to buy groceries during the holidays, with funding from the Los Angeles Mayor’s Fund, which is allocating $ 550,000 to the initiative.
People who want to contribute to the effort should go to mayorsfundla.org/covid19 for more information, he said.
The dramatic wave of coronavirus, which on Wednesday saw the Los Angeles district set daily records of new cases, deaths and hospitalizations in general, causes other officials to implore people to heed warnings to avoid meetings and continue social distancing. the use of masks.
“Based on the science of COVID-19 transmission, the devastation we are experiencing now is that people unknowingly infected with the virus were in direct or direct contact with another person or group over time. enough to infect them. ” The official, Dr. Mount Davis said: “It may have occurred at work or when people traveling outside the home with whom they did not live during the holidays were traveling or visiting, either in the county or in another county or in another state or another country “.
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Since new infections, hospitalizations and deaths generally reflect the actions people took two weeks ago (depending on the incubation period of the virus), health officials said the figures will continue to worsen in the coming weeks.
The dangerous trends of COVID-19 threaten to overwhelm emergency departments and intensive care units, according to officials.
“Really, what we need to focus on now is that each and every one of us, our family and friends, our colleagues and co-workers do what it takes to curb the spread of this infection as quickly and widely as it has state, “Davis said. … There is too much risk in terms of the number of cases diagnosed every day in the community. We are already seeing the impact it has on our healthcare system, as well as the number of deaths that are being reported. “
Although vaccines are beginning to be administered in Los Angeles County and across the county, officials noted that it will not mitigate the current increase in cases and will not be widely available to the general public for months.
“COVID-19’s transmission science also indicates that transmission occurs most easily in crowded spaces with many people close by, in close contact environments, especially where people have conversations very close to each other and in small spaces or closed spaces with little ventilation “. “And that the risk of COVID-19 spreading is greater in places where these three conditions overlap.”
The impact of the virus’s rise on the emergency medical system became clear Thursday morning, when the state announced that the Southern California region, eleven counties, had formally reached zero capacity to intensive care units. The designation does not mean that no beds are available, as the state adjusts the capacity figure based on the proportion of COVID patients occupying space in the ICU.
ICU capacity drops to 0% in Southern California, as the state reports 379 new deaths, surpassing the record
According to the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services, as of Thursday, only 716 beds were available and available at the 70 hospitals that receive “911” that have emergency services. Only 92 of those available beds were ICU beds, a estimated 102 on Wednesday.
County hospitals have a total licensing capacity of about 2,500 ICU beds and hospitals have increased the staff to operate at approximately that number over the past week.
Last week, county hospitals operated an overall average of about 10,360 non-ICU beds a day, based on physical space and available staff. Hospitals are generally licensed to operate about 17,000 non-ICU beds, but that number is restricted by the availability of staff to treat patients.
The county reported a total of 4,864 COVID patients in hospitals on Thursday, about 200 more than the day before and the highest level of pandemic. About 20% of those people were in ICU beds, or about 973. The state website Thursday before included the county’s number of COVID hospitalizations at 5,100.
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“Our hospitals are under siege and our model shows no end,” County DHS director Dr. Christina Ghaly said Wednesday, adding, “The worst is still ahead of us.”
Ghaly said hospitals made an average of about 600 coronavirus admissions a day, up from 500 last week. According to current trends, hospitals could admit 750 to 1,350 new admissions per day COVID by the end of December, he said.
On Thursday, the county Department of Public Health reported an additional 102 coronavirus deaths, though four of those were announced Wednesday by Long Beach health officials. Long Beach reported four more deaths Thursday afternoon, while Pasadena has announced three more. The new fatalities gave the county a total of 8,671 deaths since the start of the pandemic.
Director of Public Health Barbara Ferrer said average daily COVID-19 deaths in the county have risen 267 percent since Nov. 9, reaching 44 per day since last week, and probably even higher. this week, given the recent death toll. Ferrer said it equates to two people in the county who die from COVID-19 every hour.
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Another 14,418 COVID infections were confirmed Thursday in the county. Long Beach health officials reported 993 more cases Thursday afternoon, while Pasadena health officials announced a daily record of 201 new infections. The new cases raised the county-wide total to 581,519.
County officials said the local COVID-19 transmission rate, the average number of people infected with the virus each COVID-positive, is now 1.2, up from 1.16 a week previous. Whenever the rate is higher than 1, the number of cases is expected to increase.
The county also estimates that one in 80 residents who are not hospitalized or in quarantine or isolation are infected with the virus, probably unknowingly or showing no symptoms, but can still infect others.
The Southern California region, which covers the counties of Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Diego, Imperial, Inyo, Mono, San Bernardino, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara and Ventura, is subject to a regional home stay imposed by the state ordered that it ban meetings of people from different households and force many businesses to close, while restricting capacity to others.
Schools with waivers may remain open, along with “critical infrastructure” and retail stores, which will be limited to 20% of capacity.
Restaurants can only be taken away and delivered. Hotels are allowed to open “only for critical infrastructure,” while churches would be restricted to outdoor services only. Entertainment production, including professional sports, would be allowed to continue without live audiences.
The order will remain in effect until at least December 28th.
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City News Service contributed to this report.
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