As California ICU bed availability drops below 2%, officials plead: don’t get together for Christmas

A day after California reported a frightening record of more than 62,000 daily coronavirus cases, the availability of intensive care statewide fell below 2% for the first time on Tuesday, and public health officials have made urgent calls for people to skip their usual Christmas celebrations this week.

With the number of hospitals and intensive care units rising steadily in nearly every county, California has extended its statewide curfew. The ban on non-essential activities from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. was scheduled to expire on Tuesday, but will remain in effect until intensive care capacity improves everywhere and more restrictive stay-at-home orders are lifted.

The pressure on hospitals and health care providers to keep pace with COVID-19 patients is extreme, according to public health experts. Intensive care units were over 100% full on Tuesday for the fifth day in a row in Southern California and the San Joaquin Valley, and the state has opened field hospitals to treat patients who cannot get treatment. reads in traditional establishments.

“We are struggling to increase the capacity of COVID patients as we speak,” Greg Adams, chief executive of Kaiser Permanente, said during a press briefing Tuesday.

Kaiser, one of the state’s largest healthcare providers, reported that 16 of its 36 hospitals were overcapacity in intensive care. Four hospitals in northern California, but none in the Bay Area, were at or near ICU capacity, Kaiser officials said. The whole system was more than 100% of its usual patient volume for this time of year, and Adams said more than half of the patients had COVID-19.

“As the number of hospital beds continues to decline, we simply won’t be able to keep up if the COVID outbreak continues to rise,” Adams said.

The new spike in daily cases came as public health experts in the Bay Area said they were seeing clues the local surge could slow down a bit, although they warned the region no was not sure yet. The current path of the outbreak may be a little less steep, but it is still on the rise and could increase further after the holidays.

“I must stress that we have a long way to go. Even at this current rate, our situation would be very dire in the coming weeks, ”said Dr. Grant Colfax, director of the San Francisco Department of Public Health, during a press briefing Tuesday. “Holiday gatherings outside your home should be avoided at all costs.”

Cases and deaths

California reported 62,661 cases on Monday, breaking the previous day’s record by 17%. The Bay Area reported 5,028 cases, which was not a record, but this is only the second time the region has passed 5,000 cases in one day.

But the rate of increase is declining in parts of the Bay Area. Colfax said two weeks ago, when the regional stay-at-home order was put in place and the Thanksgiving wave became evident, cases were increasing in San Francisco by about 8% every day. The daily increase has since fallen to around 2%, he said.

He said the stay-at-home order, which San Francisco and four other Bay Area counties enacted before a state mandate, likely helped suppress local transmission. Reproductive value, a marker of how quickly the virus has spread, has also fallen, he said – from around 1.45 two weeks ago to 1.24 now.

“We are still in a very dangerous position with the virus,” he said. “But we are starting to see that our collective efforts are making a difference.”

Deaths continue to rise, statewide and locally. California reported 372 deaths on Tuesday, up from 233 deaths per day on average last week.

The Bay Area has reported 39 deaths from COVID-19, an increase from the 24-per-day average last week. Alameda County alone killed 21 people on Tuesday.

Hospitals and intensive care

Nearly 17,900 people were hospitalized with COVID-19 in California on Monday, more than double than at the start of the month three weeks ago. Hospitalizations in the Bay Area also nearly doubled, to 1,730 on Monday.

More than 3,700 people were in intensive care with COVID-19 in California, including 435 in the Bay Area. The availability of intensive care for the whole state fell to 1.4% on Tuesday. But availability remained stable in the Bay Area at 13.4%.

The northern California region remained the only area not subject to the state’s stay-at-home order, with 29.5 percent of critical care beds available.

California public health officials released the worst statewide hospitalization forecast on Monday, predicting it could reach 90,000 by the end of January, although many experts say this is unlikely. Hospitals in many parts of the state have already activated plans to deal with an increase in patient numbers and they expect things to get worse in the coming weeks.

Colfax said Tuesday that the models for San Francisco suggest that if the city can push the reproductive value below 1 over the next week – which would mean the current outbreak is no longer developing – then the outbreak could peak around the 31st. December, with 220 COVID -19 hospitalized patients. If the reproductive value is 1.24, models suggest the peak would not come until March 1, with 590 people hospitalized.

In the nearer future, Kaiser predicts that his California hospitals could see an increase of 1,400 COVID-19 patients by the end of this week, and an increase of 2,000 to 3,000 over the next month if the situation does not improve. not.

“What we’re seeing right now is the celebratory effect of Thanksgiving Day,” said Dr. Stephen Parodi, Kaiser’s executive vice president and infectious disease expert. “We understand why people did it, but we’re really making a bugle – a desperate call – to Californians not to repeat what happened on Thanksgiving. Our hospital system cannot afford to see another increase like we saw with Thanksgiving.