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Unleashed coronavirus reveals new unpredictability as promised post-holiday surge continues at a steady pace, with some hospitals now seeing an increase in the number of COVID-19 patients who did not have underlying medical conditions, according to officials.
Hospitals in the Bay Area and beyond are seeing an increase in such patients, Dr Peter Chin-Hong, an infectious disease expert at UCSF, said on Sunday.
“It’s not just people living in nursing homes or people with immune compromising diseases who get sick,” Chin-Hong said. “With COVID, it’s an equal opportunity disease, in a sense.
This gives more uncertainty in predicting who will get seriously ill.
Earlier in the pandemic, only 7% of deaths from COVID-19 in Los Angeles County occurred in people without underlying health issues, while now 14% of deaths are in this group, reports the Los Angeles Times.
Santa Clara County recorded its highest COVID-19 death toll to date over the weekend – 40 lives lost to the virus were recorded on Saturday – as the number of cases and deaths climbed to disturbing new highs and as health leaders braced for more weeks of tragic rally after the holiday results.
The Bay Area as a whole approached another depressing milestone on Sunday, with nearly 3,000 deaths from COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic. Nearly 303,000 people in the Bay Area were infected as of Sunday. Statewide, the death toll is on track to soon reach 30,000.
Overwhelmed hospitals across California continue to struggle to find intensive care beds, as experts predict the surge will worsen this month before leveling off in February.
The Bay Area Hospital’s ICU capacity was at just 3 percent uptime, based on Friday’s records, and the greater Sacramento area almost as tight at 6.4 percent. Hospitals currently worst affected by the pandemic, in the Southern California and San Joaquin Valley areas, continued to struggle with zero percent critical care capacity available and used ad hoc facilities that were put in place. place by the state to ensure that all patients can get care.
Vaccination rates have remained below distribution. California had administered 734,405 vaccines as of Saturday, out of nearly 2.2 million doses shipped to local health departments and multi-county health care systems.
Globally, more than 90 million people have been infected and nearly 2 million people have died, including more than 373,000 Americans, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
Tatiana Sanchez is a staff member of the San Francisco Chronicle. Email: [email protected] Twitter: @TatianaYSanchez
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