Barbara Ferrer, Public Health Director for Los Angeles County, expects numbers to continue rising as a result of the recent holiday gatherings. However, it's the significant spike in hospitalisations that is giving cause for concern, due to the pressure it is placing on healthcare workers and hospital resources. The virus is. Despite what protesters claim, this is not a hoax. ICU bed capacity plunged to 0% in Southern California last month, as more and more people were admitted to hospital seeking treatment for Covid-19.
Positive COVID-19 cases in the nation's most populous county had doubled in just over a month to 800,000, she said, with more than one in five who get tested now returning positive results.
Dr. Christina Ghaly, director of the county's Department of Health Services, offered a stern reminder that wearing a mask is about protecting other people from the virus and slowing its spread.
As the state of California finds itself in the midst of a full-blown Covid-19 crisis, medical workers in Los Angeles are being faced with some stark choices.
"This order that was issued by the county emergency medical services really is very specific to patients who suffered from a cardiac arrest and are unable to be revived in the field", said Dr. Jeffrey Smith, chief operating officer of Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. "And today's relatively lower number of new cases reflects the closure of many testing sites and delays in reporting over the holiday", Ferrer said.
California posted a new single-day record for coronavirus cases Monday, logging more than 74,000, according to a Times tally of local health agencies.
The World Health Organization considers positive test rates above 5% concerning because it suggests there are more cases in the community that have not yet been uncovered.
Nationwide, a record of over 128,000 people were hospitalized for COVID-19 on Monday. "All hospitals are being inundated with COVID patients". Ferrer said that if current case trends continue, there will be more than 9,000 COVID patients hospitalized within two weeks.
"We are in the midst of an unprecedented and unsafe surge", Solis said.
"People who have a stroke or a heart attack or experienced a traumatic injury from a auto crash are finding it more hard to access care compared to months ago", Ferrer said after she reported 77 additional deaths and 9,142, new cases Monday. That raised the average number of deaths over the last week to 353 a day, the highest yet.
Mark Ghilarducci, director of the Governor's Office of Emergency Services, said, "By working to upgrade challenged oxygen delivery systems at these older hospitals we can improve the ability to deliver life-sustaining medical care to those who need it".
Martinez's case will be moved to mental health court, with a February 2 status update set in Lancaster, according to the District Attorney's Office.
"Another way to look at this is that we're losing - on average - a person every 15 minutes here in L.A. County", Ferrer said.
