LA seeing “terrifying” increases in Covid-19; Only 122 intensive care beds left – Deadline

Unless more people follow the precautions, “This winter will be the most difficult time in the history of public health in this country,” CDC director Robert Redfield said on Wednesday. This is a strong statement given that the 1918 flu claimed the lives of approximately 675,000 Americans. But concerned public health officials are heading there as the current Covid-19 pandemic worsens.

“We are seeing a terrifying increase in numbers in LA County,” the area’s director of public health, Barbara Ferrer said Wednesday. “This can only be reversed if everyone – businesses and individuals – uses the tools to slow the spread.”

The generally optimistic Ferrer took on a darker tone on Wednesday, the day after the county saw its highest number of new daily infections – by far – since the start of the pandemic.

“We each have a choice to make,” Ferrer said. “Do we want to be part of the solution to this horrible push or do we want to be the problem. Because where you fall in this effort now has a life and death consequence.

Indeed. Health officials on Tuesday confirmed 7,593 new infections in the county, surpassing the previous high of 6,124 recorded last week. Wednesday’s daily testing positivity rate was 12%, down from 7% just over a week ago. This indicates that the virus is infecting more people at a faster rate than ever in Los Angeles, even as the county provides more tests than ever before.

Ferrer reported 5,987 new cases on Wednesday, bringing the cumulative total to 414,185. There are 2,439 people hospitalized for Covid-19, the highest level in the entire pandemic.

The hospital figures are concerning, given that California Governor Gavin Newsom said on Monday that Los Angeles could run out of intensive care stations by mid-December. Newsom also strongly suggested that some sort of stricter stay-at-home order would be forthcoming from the state. It seemed even more likely after CA reported a record number of new cases on Wednesday, about 1/3 more than the previous note set last week.

To convey the urgency of the situation, Ferrer shared a series of slides showing sharp increases in Covid-19 across the board over the past week. They were indicated by almost vertical lines.

This sentiment was echoed on Wednesday by Christina Ghaly, Los Angles director of health and social services. She said that while the local hospital system still has 963 beds available, the number of intensive care beds has fallen to 122. That represents 122 intensive care beds for a county of 10 million people.

Staffing, not beds, is the critical issue in the ICU. It is not easy to find more specially trained nurses and doctors. Given the current numbers and the current “tight” staffing, Ghaly said county models show that “we will have a shortage of intensive care beds over the next 2-4 weeks. An insufficient number of ICU beds means people who need intensive care will not get it and a greater percentage of patients with Covid-19 will die.

“We are now starting to see a sharp increase in daily deaths,” Ferrer said. “Because we know these deaths reflect the number of cases from a month ago, as cases continue to rise, we should all be extremely concerned about what this means for daily deaths.”

Watch the LA County Health update below.