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Under the onslaught of skyrocketing Covid-19 cases, available space continued to shrink in Los Angeles County hospitals on Friday. As a result, healthcare professionals begged the public to take the virus seriously to prevent medical centers from being overrun and unable to treat patients.
“We are crushed. I’m not going to put this to sleep. We’re crushed, ”said Dr. Brad Spellberg, chief medical officer of Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center. “For most days of the past week, we haven’t had any intensive care beds open in the morning, and we’ve had to scramble – ‘can we move this patient here?’ ‘Can we move that patient over there…’ We ‘We are already expanding care to areas of the hospital where we don’t normally provide that kind of care.
“And it’s not just the COVID patients,” he says. “It’s car crashes and heart attacks and victims of violence. They need a place to go to receive intensive care. We can only react. We cannot stop the spread. We need the public to listen to these mitigation strategies to slow the spread or we’ll be completely out of beds.
But Covid-19 is by far the biggest culprit.
“By this weekend,” Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said Thursday, “and probably by tomorrow we will probably have… more than half of our intensive care beds occupied by Covid-19 patients. .
Spellberg also expressed the frustration felt by healthcare workers caused by those who deny the severity of the virus and downplay its impact on hospitals.
“The amount of moral courage it takes to run into danger makes it very frustrating for our heroes to come to our hospitals every day and care for patients when we see videos and hear from people not taking health strategies. public seriously, ”he said.
His comments came amid a wave of cases that have exploded in the county since November, exacerbated by the Thanksgiving holiday and the rallies that have taken place despite warnings against them.
Dr Christina Ghaly said that as of Friday morning there were 699 hospital beds available in Los Angeles County – with a population of 10 million – and only 69 intensive care beds, although unmanaged hospitals by the county have a few more. Ghaly’s count is down from Thursday’s figures of 716 total beds and 92 intensive care beds.
Ghaly noted that the hospital numbers represent a “snapshot in time” of a daily morning survey of the county’s 70 “911” hospitals with emergency rooms, and the numbers can fluctuate widely throughout. the day.
In recent days, county hospitals have operated at near their full licensed capacity of around 2,500 intensive care beds.
County hospitals last week operated an average of 10,360 non-ICU beds per day, depending on physical space and available staff. Overall, county hospitals are licensed to operate approximately 17,000 non-ICU beds, but this number is limited by the availability of staff to treat patients. There are simply not enough.
The county reported a total of 4,864 Covid-19 patients in hospitals on Thursday, up around 200 from the previous day and the highest level of the pandemic. About 20% of these people were in intensive care beds, or about 973.
Ghaly echoed Spellberg’s warning that crushing patients in hospitals threatens care for everyone, not just Covid-19 patients.
“Everyone has seen firsthand how devastating this pandemic has been and continues to be and knows that we are fighting this unprecedented outbreak that is overwhelming our hospitals and is really threatening to compromise the ability … of hospitals to take care for anyone who needs their services, ”she told me. “And that’s at risk right now.”
Spellberg noted that the arrival of a Covid-19 vaccine offers hope for healthcare workers and the public that the pandemic may end, but that end is still a long way off.
“While we now see the light at the end of the tunnel, we haven’t reached the light yet,” Spellberg said. “The pandemic will continue for many, many months after we start vaccinating people. Now is not the time to start ignoring public health advice and recommendations. Our hospitals are severely overcrowded in LA County. And if we don’t stop the spread, our hospitals will be overwhelmed. “
On Thursday, the state announced that the 11-county region of Southern California has officially reached zero intensive care unit capacity. The designation does not mean there are no beds available, as the state adjusts the capacity figure based on the ratio of Covid patients occupying the ICU space. However, it could also mean that there are really no adult beds in ICU, the rest being ICU beds.
Ghaly said earlier that Los Angeles County hospitals averaged around 600 coronavirus admissions per day, up from around 500 last week. Based on current trends, hospitals could admit between 750 and 1,350 new Covid admissions per day by the end of December, she said.
The county’s public health department reported an additional 102 coronavirus deaths on Thursday, although four of them were actually announced by health officials in Long Beach on Wednesday. Long Beach reported four more deaths Thursday afternoon, while Pasadena reported three more. The new deaths have given the county a total of 8,671 coronavirus-related deaths since the start of the pandemic.
Public health director Barbara Ferrer said average daily deaths from Covid-19 in the county increased by 267% since November 9, reaching 44 per day last week, and likely even more this week counts given the recent increase in deaths. Ferrer said this equates to two people in the county dying from Covid-19 every hour.
Another 14,418 infections were confirmed in the county on Thursday. Long Beach health officials reported an additional 993 cases as of Thursday afternoon, while Pasadena health officials announced a daily record of 201 new infections. The new cases brought the county’s cumulative total to 581,519.
The county also estimates that one in 80 residents out of hospital or in quarantine / isolation is infected with the virus, likely unknowingly or showing no symptoms, but still able to infect others.
City News Service contributed to this report.
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