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California reached another troubling COVID-19 milestone on Tuesday, with an average of 14,120 cases per day and more than 8,200 hospitalized – the two new records.
The continuing outbreak puts increased pressure on national and local authorities to take more aggressive measures to slow the spread before it overwhelms hospitals. Los Angeles County, which has been particularly hard hit, has reported more than 7,500 new cases – the most in a single day. Projections suggest LA County could reach 9,000 cases by next week.
Officials said they would consider a restrictive stay-at-home order if cases continued to rise, which is now expected as Thanksgiving weekend is likely to spread the virus even further.
What are the options?
Gov. Gavin Newsom warned Monday that a new stay-at-home order could arrive.
It is possible that such an order will only be imposed on counties in the worst form among those in the purple level – although the vast majority of counties are in this level. “We will be releasing additional information, additional recommendations in the very, very near future,” Newsom said.
Few details of such an order have been announced. California health and human services secretary Dr Mark Ghaly said on Monday officials could learn from the spring lockdown.
“One of the most important things we’ve learned is that we can not only be more surgical with what we’re doing, but we can really prescribe it for a shorter or different length of time,” Ghaly said. “In the beginning, some of these orders were really unlimited; we weren’t sure. Today we know that we can reliably achieve the impact of certain interventions faster, and this is part of what we envision.
But that could take some clues from LA County, which now has the tightest restrictions in the state.
LA County officials deployed a “Targeted Home Safety Ordinance” which is in effect until December 20. It closes public playgrounds; imposes new capacity limits on retail stores, open-air museums, galleries, zoos and aquariums; and prohibits all gatherings between people from different households, except outdoor religious services and political demonstrations.
These limitations are in addition to other restrictions which came into effect last week, including a renewed ban on outdoor dining.
LA County Director of Public Health Barbara Ferrer on Saturday hoped those restrictions might be enough to slow the spread. But she stressed that it only works if people play by the rules.
“If that doesn’t work, and in two to three weeks we find ourselves in a worse situation than us, we will have to go back and look at what else we have as options, because we cannot continue to risk overwhelming the health care system, ”Ferrer said. “I don’t think there is any disagreement on this – it’s a disaster that we have to avoid at all costs.
Other counties have their own restrictions.
In Santa Clara County, hotel use has been limited to essential travel or people requiring medical isolation or quarantine. The capacity of retail establishments was further capped. Authorities have also suspended contact sports for professional teams, forcing the San Francisco 49ers look elsewhere to play their home games scheduled for December.
This week, San Francisco will announce further cancellations, including a possible quarantine order for travelers and reduced indoor capacity at businesses, as the coronavirus continues to rise, city officials said on Tuesday.
Dr Grant Colfax, director of public health for San Francisco, said: “We unfortunately know that the worst is probably yet to come.”
What is the situation in hospitals?
Newsom said on Monday that southern California is expected to run out of intensive care unit capacity by mid-December if current trends continue. By Christmas Eve, intensive care beds are expected to reach 107% of their capacity in the region. While intensive care treatments have improved since the early days of the pandemic, all bets are void once the intensive care units exceed their capacity.
The average net increase in the number of people hospitalized in California with COVID-19 is now around 342 patients per day over the past week, according to an analysis from The Times. The acceleration is twice as bad as the summer surge, which saw the average net increase in hospitalizations peak at 173 patients per day over a week at the end of June.
In LA County, hospitalizations have more than tripled since Halloween, when there were about 800 people hospitalized, and topped 2,400 on Monday. It was the second day in a row that the peak of hospitalizations in LA County was broken, and a number that is 9% higher than the peak of the summer wave.
What about the vaccine?
The development of COVID vaccines offers hope for 2021. But that won’t help with this winter push.
California expects to receive approximately 327,000 doses of Pfizer’s vaccine, to address frontline health workers.
CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices met on Tuesday to debate and vote on who should be the first to receive the initial doses of a COVID-19 vaccine. They recommended that the initial vaccination effort focus on frontline healthcare workers, as well as residents of long-term care facilities, such as nursing homes and assisted living facilities. As more vaccines become available, more groups will be eligible.
Most experts believe the vaccination effort in the United States will speed up in late spring and early summer, as Pfizer and Moderna continue to ramp up production and other vaccines. candidates complete their clinical trials and apply for emergency use authorization.
Times editors Tom Curwen and Alex Wigglesworth contributed to this report.
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