[ad_1]
California has more people hospitalized with COVID-19 than at any time since the start of the pandemic, a worrying development that comes as officials warn of the spread of the virus after the long holiday weekend.
The growing numbers raise new concerns about filling hospitals in the coming weeks, which has been predicted as coronavirus cases reach unprecedented levels in the state and, in particular, Los Angeles County.
Several new restrictions on personal gatherings and capacity levels in stores take effect Monday. But there are fears the outbreak will worsen before it gets better due to Thanksgiving celebrations and Black Friday shopping – which, while less robust than normal years, are likely to have caused new infections.
“We were prepared for a raise,” said Barbara Ferrer, LA County director of public health. “None of us really thought the increase would be so large in such a short period of time.”
There were 7,415 patients with COVID-19 in California hospitals on Saturday, according to the latest figures released by the state, surpassing the previous high of 7,170, set in July. Just a month earlier, on October 28, around 2,400 COVID-19 patients were in public hospitals.
LA County had the most COVID-19 patients in hospitals, at 2,185; the county is quickly approaching its all-time high of 2,232, also set in July.
The death rate is also increasing – in Los Angeles, an average of 30 people die each day from COVID-19, triple the rate in the period around election day. Statewide, an average of 75 deaths were reported daily in the seven days leading up to Thanksgiving, up from 40 in mid-November.
The LA County Department of Public Health reported 5,014 new coronavirus cases and 19 associated deaths on Sunday. The high tally came despite the fact that the number of cases typically declines on weekends, when some labs do not report results, and despite predictions by officials that the number will be below normal for several days because no tests community was only performed on Thanksgiving Day, and only limited testing was offered the next day.
Officials say if conditions continue to deteriorate, it may be necessary to issue stricter rules reminding stay-at-home orders imposed in the spring.
“More restrictive measures? I can’t imagine what it would look like at this point, ”said Maria Salinas, president and CEO of the Los Angeles area chamber of commerce.
She said the business community was concerned about the increase in the number of cases, but many believe the decision to close outdoor restaurants was not based on data proving the virus was spreading among people eating in restaurants.
Health officials have said there is a high risk of spread wherever people gather and eat, drink and linger without wearing masks.
“We’re going there again. I’m not convinced that closing, reopening and closing is effective,” said Janice Hahn, LA County Supervisor, who, along with Supervisor Kathryn Barger, brought forward a proposal asking on council to allow restaurants to continue offering outdoor dining .. The motion was defeated last week.
“None of what we have done so far has worked,” Hahn said in a statement. “Our businesses are suffering. The children are not back to school. Our health care system is about to be overwhelmed.
Other supervisors said they supported the tougher measures recommended by health officials.
“When the case rate reaches a certain point, it takes drastic action to slow the spread of this extremely deadly virus,” supervisor Hilda Solis said in a statement.
Doctors, epidemiologists and infectious disease experts have been clear: dining in open-air restaurants is risky, and practices that seemed safe just weeks ago are more dangerous now due to higher levels of spread of the virus in LA County.
Al fresco dining has likely become even riskier as restaurants have installed plastic sheeting to protect diners from the wind – the very breezes that help wash out virus particles exhaled by those infected. Without these drafts, the virus stays in the air longer, making it easier to get infected.
“I haven’t seen anyone dine with their mask on yet,” said Dr. George Rutherford, epidemiologist and infectious disease expert at UC San Francisco. “Mixture between households – it creates transmission. It’s just like that.
Dr Robert Kim-Farley, a medical epidemiologist and infectious disease expert at UCLA Fielding School of Public Health, said on Sunday that there was renewed tension between those who want to save all possible lives and those who are concerned about a devastated economy. But these two goals are not mutually exclusive, he said – a recovering economy requires a virus under control.
“The current increase in restrictions is trying to find a way to break the back of this current outbreak, to get us to a level where we are not endangering our hospital system,” said Kim-Farley, a former senior official at the hospital. LA County Department of Public Health and United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The surge in coronavirus cases in California began late last month and new cases are increasing faster than they did during the peak of the crisis in mid-July, officials said. Statewide, an average of 13,000 people test positive for the virus each day, more than quadruple the rate at the end of October, when the average was 3,000.
In LA County, an average of 4,300 people test positive every day; the figure was around 1,000 in mid-October, according to county records.
Southern California as a whole has a particularly high infection rate. In the seven days leading up to Thanksgiving, counties in Southern California reported a daily average of 40 new cases of coronavirus per 100,000 population, the most recorded to date and more than twice as many as in the Bay Area, which reported an average of 17 per 100,000 population.
The number of cases has grown so rapidly that officials statewide are warning hospital beds could run out within weeks unless something is done to dramatically reduce the spread of the disease. If the staffing of intensive care units exceeds capacity, the death rate will increase. The shortage is said to affect not only patients with COVID-19, but also those who need emergency treatment after an accident or for appendicitis, heart attack or stroke.
Since the hospitalizations reflect cases that were identified two to three weeks earlier, authorities are confident they will continue to rise over the next two to three weeks, given recent figures.
If that is the case, said Ferrer, “we are going through a very difficult time because we will have a surge in addition to a surge.”
An influential model run by the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Measurement and Evaluation indicates that, without major changes in current policies or behavior, California is on track to double its cumulative death toll from ‘by the end of winter, over 19,000 to over 37,000 as of March 1.
There is always room to change that trajectory, said Anne Rimoin, professor of epidemiology at UCLA Fielding School of Public Health.
“All illness, hospitalization and death at this stage is preventable, if we all do our part,” she said.
[ad_2]
Source link