As California virus cases drop, more people than ever die

As a hospice nurse, Antonio Espinoza worked to facilitate the passage of people to death. Barely 36 years old, it seemed unlikely that he would make this trip anytime soon.

But when the unpredictable coronavirus struck Espinoza, he went from fever to chills to labored breathing that sent him to a Southern California hospital, where he died on Monday, just over a week after his birth. admission.

Espinoza is among the last to succumb in what has become California’s deadliest wave. On average, 544 people have died every day over the past week and on Saturday the state hit the grim threshold of 40,000 total deaths, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

In just a year after the virus was first detected in the state, 1 in 1,000 Californians have died from it.

Espinoza’s wife Nancy looked through a hospital window as her husband took his final breaths, then was allowed into the bedroom to be with him. She is now figuring out what to do next and how she will raise their 3 year old son on her own.

“I had so much faith,” said Nancy Espinoza, who by a cruel coincidence lives in a town called Corona. “Never in my mind would it have crossed my mind that it would be so bad, even though we hear about it all the time.”

The victims of COVID-19 were young and old, although mostly older. Some were fit and healthy, many others had a mix of underlying medical conditions.

The death toll in California has increased rapidly since the start of the worst wave of the pandemic in mid-October. New cases and hospitalizations have reached record levels, but have declined rapidly in the past two weeks.

Deaths remain incredibly high, however, with more than 3,800 last week.

It took California six months to register its first 10,000 deaths, then four months to double to 20,000. In just five weeks, the state had reached 30,000 people. It then took only 20 days to reach 40,000.

Now only New York has more deaths – deaths there topped 43,000 – but at this rate, California will eclipse that too.

For much of the year, California has been a model for controlling the virus. He released the first statewide judgment last March and imposed an ever-changing number of restrictions that have frustrated business owners, but state officials insist they saved Lives.

Cases fell after a peak in July and then started to climb again in the fall. Gov. Gavin Newsom activated what he called the “emergency brake” on November 16 to stop the reopening of the state’s economy, keeping most public schools closed, banning religious services in inside and limiting the number of customers in stores.

But the coronavirus was already rolling like a runaway train. As Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years approached, public health officials warned people not to reunite with those outside of their homes.

Still, hospitalizations skyrocketed and on December 3 Newsom issued a stay-at-home order that divided the state into five regions and demanded more businesses close or reduce capacity if intensive care units shift. their region fell to 15% of their capacity. Four regions with 98% of the state’s population have reached this level.

The southern California and San Joaquin Valley areas were the hardest hit, with some hospitals treating patients in hallways, cafeterias, and gift shops. In Los Angeles, ambulances waited hours to drop off patients.

With improving conditions, all regions are now excluded from the order, although many strict restrictions remain.

The cases and deaths in California have disproportionately hit people of color and poorer communities, where families live in more crowded homes and among those without health insurance. Many also work in jobs with a higher risk of exposure.

The Latino death rate is 20% higher than the state average, according to figures from the Department of Public Health. Black deaths are 12% higher. Case rates are 39% higher in communities where the median income is less than $ 40,000.

Los Angeles County, the most populous in the country with a quarter of the state’s nearly 40 million people, accounts for more than 40% of deaths from the virus in California. In November, the daily number of Latino deaths was 3.5 per 100,000 population. It is now 40 deaths per 100,000, an increase of over 1,100%.

The death toll has brought other grim signs. Mortuaries and funeral homes were overwhelmed, and refrigerated trucks held bodies.

Maria Rios Luna said it took almost three weeks for her mother’s body to be collected from the hospital where she died in early January as there were 200 other bodies.

Her mother, Bernardina Luna de Rios, had always found ways to make ends meet by raising seven children on her own after surviving a car crash that killed her husband, she said.

Rios Luna, 22, said she has been particularly careful with her mother since the start of the pandemic. She carried hand sanitizer everywhere and washed her hands as soon as she got back to the house they shared with her sister and two children.

She was the one who went shopping so that her mother, who was generally in good health other than her rheumatoid arthritis, could stay at home. But the virus still entered their home in Fontana, east of Los Angeles.

Her 59-year-old mother ended up in the hospital, struggling to breathe and her condition deteriorated. Her mother told them not to worry, that she believed in God and that things happened for a reason.

When her heart started failing, her children were allowed to see their mother through a window while a nurse inside held a phone to Bernardina’s ear, so they could talk to her.

“Once I saw her in bed, honestly it broke my heart,” said Rios Luna. “I had never seen my mother so vulnerable.”

After the visit, her mother’s liver stopped working, then her lungs. She died the next day.

“We have the impression that she waited until we went to see her,” said Rios Luna.

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