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California officials have painted an increasingly catastrophic picture of the state’s Covid-19 crisis over the past few days, precisely what they warned, as the state faces an oxygen shortage .
California has deployed the US Army Corps of Engineers and the California Emergency Medical Services Authority to deliver and fill oxygen tanks.
In Los Angeles County, emergency workers have been urged to conserve oxygen and administer the minimum amount of oxygen to keep patients’ oxygen saturation level at or just above 90%. (A level in the 90s or below is a concern for people with Covid-19.)
Officials in the most populous county in the United States have said that one person is infected every six seconds in the county, and one in five residents currently being tested is infected with Covid-19. “Your bubble is not as secure as you think,” the department tweeted.
Gov. Gavin Newsom warned that the worst was yet to come: a “surge plus a flare” caused by infections after the holidays.
As of Tuesday evening, 4,374 people with Covid-19 had died in the previous two weeks, up from 3,202 in the previous two weeks.
In some cases, the victims of this outbreak will have nowhere to go.
Los Angeles County health officials have ordered ambulance teams not to transport some cardiac arrest patients whose survival is unlikely. In some hospitals, patients are lined up outside while workers try to find space to lie down.
California was already running low on hospital beds before the pandemic, and intensive care capacity in much of the state had been non-existent for weeks.
The outbreak in Southern California was so severe that industry groups themselves called for a hiatus in film and television production, which had been allowed even after the outdoor dining ban. SAG-AFTRA, the union representing 160,000 workers in the industry, was joined by groups representing producers and advertisers to demand a stop in person production on Sunday.
Their statement noted that even if workers do not contract the virus, they are still at risk of injury from stunts, equipment failures or falls.
“With little to no hospital beds available, it’s hard to understand how an injured worker on set is supposed to seek treatment,” said David White, National Executive Director of SAG-AFTRA.
The Grammy Awards, one of the entertainment industry’s biggest parties, were postponed Tuesday from January 31 to March 14. A statement from the Recording Academy, which presents the awards, and CBS, its long-time broadcast partner, cited the “deterioration” of the situation in Los Angeles.
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