[ad_1]
LOS ANGELES (AP) – Ambulances have waited hours for openings to unload coronavirus patients. Overflow patients were transferred to hospital hallways and gift shops, and even to a cafeteria. Refrigerated trucks were waiting, ready to store the dead.
For months, California has done many of the right things to prevent a catastrophic outbreak of the pandemic. But by the time Governor Gavin Newsom said on December 15 that 5,000 body bags were being distributed, it was clear that the most populous state in the country had entered a new phase of the COVID-19 crisis.
Infections have now been out of control for weeks, and California has consistently set new records for infections and deaths. It remains at or near the top of the list of states with the most new cases per capita.
Experts say various factors combined to wipe out past efforts, which for much of the year kept the virus at manageable levels. Cramped housing, Thanksgiving trips and gatherings have helped the spread, along with public fatigue amid regulations that have closed many schools and businesses and encouraged – or demanded – an isolated lifestyle.
Another factor could be a more contagious variant of the virus detected in Southern California, although it is not yet known how widespread this can be.
California’s woes helped fuel the peak of infection in the United States at the end of the year and heightened the urgency of attempts to fend off the scourge that has killed more than 340,000 Americans. Even with the availability of vaccines, it is almost certain that cases will continue to grow, and another surge is expected in the weeks after Christmas and New Years.
The southern half of the state has suffered the worst, from the agricultural valley of San Joaquin to the Mexican border. Hospitals are overflowing with patients and intensive care units no longer have beds for patients with COVID-19. Makeshift rooms are set up in tents, arenas, classrooms and conference rooms.
Hospitalizations statewide have increased eightfold in two months and nearly tenfold in Los Angeles County. On Thursday, the total death toll in California surpassed 25,000, joining only New York and Texas at this point.
“The heartbreaking thing is that if we had done a better job of reducing the transmission of the virus, a lot of these deaths would not have happened,” said Barbara Ferrer, county public health director, who pleaded with people. not to come together and get worse. the propagation.
Overcrowded homes and apartments are often cited as a source of the spread, especially in Los Angeles, which has some of the densest neighborhoods in the U.S. Households in and around Los Angeles often consist of several generations – or families. – living under one roof. These tend to be low-income areas where residents have essential jobs that can put them at risk for the virus at work or while traveling.
The socio-economic situation in LA County is “like a small wood,” said Paula Cannon, professor of microbiology and immunology at the University of Southern California. “And now we’ve come to the point where there was enough COVID in the community to start the fire.”
Home to a quarter of the state’s 40 million people, LA County has seen 40% of the state’s deaths and a third of its 2.2 million cases. The virus has hit black and black Latin communities the hardest.
Cannon said there is a moral imperative for people who can follow orders to stay home to help prevent the spread which is more difficult to contain in other areas.
“What you can’t do is say to people, ‘Can you stop living in a house with eight other people, five of whom are in essential jobs? “, She says. “This is the structure that we cannot change in Los Angeles. This is, I think, what explains why our levels suddenly got scary and seem to keep going up and staying that way.
In March, during the first days of the pandemic, Newsom was hailed for issuing the country’s first stay-at-home order.
The Democrat eased trade restrictions in May and, when a broader reboot led to another push, he imposed more rules. In early December, with cases getting out of hand, he issued a more flexible stay-at-home order. It also closed businesses such as barber shops and hair salons, halted restaurants and limited capacity in retail stores. The latest restrictions apply everywhere except rural northern California.
But Dr Lee Riley, professor of infectious diseases at the University of California, Berkeley, said that if the state succeeds in flattening the curve of increasing cases, it never bends it so effectively that infections s ‘would turn off.
When cases spiked in June and July, California was never able to trace enough contacts to isolate those infected and those they may have been exposed to before spreading the disease – often unintentionally – to others. , did he declare. And public health guidelines have never been properly applied.
“What California has done is maybe delay the peak,” Riley said. Infections “have never been low enough. And we started to lift the restrictions, which just allowed transmissions to keep increasing. We’ve never really seen a real decline. “
California Health Secretary Dr Mark Ghaly said if state and local leaders hadn’t made tough decisions early on that saved lives, the current outbreak might not be the worst that the state has known.
He recognized the exhaustion many people feel after experiencing months of disruption in their lives. Public health officials, he said, must find a way to reach people who have given up or have not obeyed the rules of social distancing and masks.
Across California, local officials have reminded people that the fate of the virus lies in their behavior and called for a new round of shared sacrifices. They reminded people that activities that were safe earlier this year are now risky as the virus spreads.
“You can practice safety and low risk behaviors from March through October. But all of that is erased. Nothing matters except what you are doing to combat the virus right now, ”said Corinne McDaniels-Davidson, director of the Institute of Public Health at San Diego State University. “This pandemic is an ultra-marathon. In our culture, we are used to sprints. “
___
Jeffrey Collins, associate editor at the press in Columbia, South Carolina, contributed to this report.
[ad_2]
Source link