COVID pushes LA County to the brink of disaster

Long wait times to unload patients at severely overcrowded Los Angeles County hospitals increasingly prevent ambulances from responding to other emergency calls, officials said on Thursday – the latest knock-on effect of the outbreak rampant and widespread coronavirus hitting the region’s health system.

Sometimes up to 10 ambulances are waiting to drop off patients, and “we’ve had patients waiting in ambulance bays outside of [emergency departments] for seven hours, eight hours, ”said Cathy Chidester, director of the LA County Emergency Medical Services Agency.

“We are running out of ambulances and our responses to 911 calls are getting longer and longer,” she said in a briefing Thursday.

In the Antelope Valley, “response times are getting longer,” forcing officials to start relying on ambulance companies that are not traditionally used to answer 911 calls, according to Chidester.

And elsewhere in the county, officials are working with fire departments to staff hospital ambulance bays to help offload patients faster so vehicles can be put back into service.

Unlike other cataclysms, such as a fire or an earthquake, Chidester said the COVID-19 toll on hospitals was a “hidden disaster”, which is not immediately apparent to the public.

But make no mistake, she said, “we are in the middle of a disaster”.

“You can see the look in the eyes of the staff. It’s like the deer in the headlights, ”she said. “They are overwhelmed. They are pale. They are trying to do their best with limited resources at this point because there are so many patients.

As the COVID-19 crisis worsens and the number of infected people requiring professional care continues to rise, some hospitals have needed hours to make room for new patients arriving by ambulance; to send personnel to treat people in the ambulances themselves; or, in particularly difficult times, to temporarily close their doors to ambulance traffic.

There have been such long delays in unloading patients that there have been “unfortunate results,” Dr Christina Ghaly, director of LA County Health Services, said this week.

The effects of an overtaxed healthcare system reverberate far beyond those infected with COVID-19. Officials recently expressed concern that people with strokes, heart attacks and seizures are languishing outside hospitals without receiving the care they need in a timely manner.

Even people affected by more sudden emergencies, such as a car accident, may be unable to get the medical attention they need if conditions continue to deteriorate.

It is a “very dire situation facing hospitals,” Ghaly said Thursday, and “this surge is pushing all hospitals in the county to the brink of disaster.”

However, not everyone who arrives at the hospital has the chance to return home. The virus has killed more Californians in each of the past two days than any other day during the entire pandemic – consecutive hits that have propelled the state’s total death toll to more than 25,000.

California is the third state to reach this morbid mark, joining Texas and New York.

In the past three days, more than 1,100 people statewide have died from COVID-19, including a record high of 442 on Tuesday and the second highest, 424, on Wednesday.

These numbers are roughly the equivalent of one person dying from the disease every three and a half minutes.

The situation has become so grim that some morgue and funeral home operators say they must turn away bereaved families because they lack the capacity to handle more bodies.

In Los Angeles County, which officially surpassed the total of 10,000 coronavirus-related deaths on Wednesday, officials said they now see around 150 people dying from COVID-19 each day – a figure almost as high as the average number. people dying daily from every other cause.

This equates to an Angeleno dying every 10 minutes.

From midnight Thursday, county officials began post new messages on Twitter at this interval, describing someone who may have just lost their battle with COVID-19: the principal who stayed late to watch all the school rooms, an emergency nurse who carried out two shifts for month, the local activist who worked to uplift a community, a dear colleague or friend, a beloved member of the family.

Each message was punctuated by the same plea: “Slow down the broadcast. Save a life.”

“Most heartbreaking is that, if we had done a better job of reducing the transmission of the virus, many of these deaths would not have happened,” said LA County Director of Public Health Barbara Ferrer.

The country’s most populous county also set consecutive records for daily COVID-19 deaths this week, with 262 reported on Wednesday and 242 on Tuesday.

While recent numbers have been in part influenced by a backlog of Christmas holiday weekend reporting, officials say they represent a sobering reality: some are now paying the ultimate price for the decisions they make. or those they came into contact with weeks ago.

“We have a chance to get it right,” Ferrer said Wednesday. “So let’s start today by recognizing our shared humanity and responsibility to care for one another.”

While there has been some cautious optimism that the worst wave of the pandemic is starting to level off in some areas – although, notably, not in Southern California – recent record-breaking death rates demonstrate the continued devastation caused by the coronavirus and, officials warn. , indicate even darker days ahead if the state is criticized by another wave resulting from widespread rallies and travel for the winter holidays.

California is also facing the presence of a new variant of the coronavirus that some scientists deem even more contagious. The strain, first identified in the UK, was detected in a 30-year-old man in San Diego County, and it is not known how far it may have circulated.

“The next few weeks will be tough, especially with this outbreak in addition to an outbreak – I would say, again, a likely additional surge coming from Christmas and hopefully a little more modest. New Year’s Eve, ”Governor Gavin Newsom said.

Everyone, he added, should be aware of the dangers posed by the pandemic.

“Please don’t just assume, think or naively believe that this is something that will not affect you because you are younger, it is just old people,” a- he said on Wednesday.

As hospitals struggle to cope with the flood of COVID-19 patients, the state has also deployed 1,280 medical personnel – including the California National Guard medical staff – to assist with health operations, said Thursday. officials.

A particularly valuable resource are beds in hospital intensive care units, which are needed for patients in the worst conditions.

Southern California and the San Joaquin Valley have consistently had 0% available capacity in their intensive care units for about two weeks – an agonizing measure that doesn’t necessarily mean no beds are open, but l space, resources and personnel are precariously depleted.

The availability of intensive care fell to 8.5% in the Bay Area on Thursday, according to the latest state data, and was 14.4% in Greater Sacramento.

These four regions are subject to state stay-at-home orders, which are aimed at reducing transmission of the coronavirus through strict limits on businesses and activities.

Although the restrictions have met with resistance in some corners, with the ban on outdoor dining proving particularly reprehensible, officials and experts say they are surrounded by a basic truth: that the best way to fight against the virus is to reduce the opportunities for it to spread by reducing interactions and mixing between different households.

In a virtual conversation with Newsom on Wednesday, Dr Anthony Fauci, the U.S. government’s top infectious disease specialist, said it was incorrect to present the situation as a choice between public health or economic strength.

“We need to use public health measures as a vehicle, a gateway, a tool to revive the economy,” he said. “It’s not economics against public health. It is public health that allows you to revive the economy. This is what we need to achieve, and not say, “I don’t want to do this because I want the economy to open up”. You will open up the economy when you reduce the level of infection, and the only way to reduce the level of infection before the vaccine takes effect is to take public health action.

Officials have urged residents to stay home and avoid the temptation to celebrate the New Year with those they don’t live with.

San Francisco extended its stay-at-home and travel quarantine orders for coronavirus indefinitely on Thursday, and state officials said the order covering the Greater Sacramento area would also “likely be extended based on first USI screenings “.

Officials across the state have pleaded with residents not to reunite for the holidays with people outside their immediate homes.

“The actions we have taken together have served us well, but the fact remains that San Francisco is in the midst of its worst surge to date,” said Dr Grant Colfax, the city’s director of public health. “We must continue to take the preventive measures we know to slow the spread of the virus and save lives.”

If those calls fall on deaf ears, officials warn that turning the schedule will bring more pain and suffering to a state already shaken by a year of untold losses.

“We absolutely have to get this push under control, and it will take effort from everyone to get there,” Ghaly said. “If we don’t, then the start of 2021 will be worse than the end of 2020. And that’s not a situation that neither of us want to see happen.”

Times editors Maura Dolan, Soumya Karlamangla and Matthew Ormseth contributed to this report.