Since Friday, Los Angeles County reportedly has 20,414 new cases of Covid-19 and 207 additional deaths, although 40 of the deaths were from a backlog associated with a Spectrum outage and holiday reporting delays.
During the pandemic, Los Angeles County has reached its highest number of coronavirus patients in county hospitals, which rose to 7,613, with 21% of those in intensive care units.
Conditions continue to worsen at hospitals in the county, with ambulances waiting up to eight hours to off-load patients, leading to a shortage of paramedic crews on the streets and longer 911 response times.
On Friday, state officials announced that amid the unfolding disaster, the US Army Corps of Engineers is sending experts to help with the oxygen delivery system at six of the county’s older hospitals.
The county Emergency Medical Services agency director, Cathy Chidester, said earlier this week, “The current surge of patients…it’s kind of a hidden disaster.” She said, “It’s not a fire. It’s not an earthquake. It’s not a train wreck that’s right in the public view, and they can see what is happening, and they can avoid that area. It’s all happening behind the doors of households and hospitals. So nobody is really, the general public is not really seeing what is going on.”
She said some hospitals are so overwhelmed that ambulances are waiting seven or eight hours in emergency bays, which forces patients to be treated in the ambulance. More importantly, the delay is keeping ambulances out of services, leaving them unable to respond to additional emergency medical calls.
“We’re running out of ambulances, and our response to 911 calls is getting longer and longer,” Chidester said.
In Antelope Valley, the county uses ambulances and ambulance companies “that are not traditionally 911-response ambulances” to keep up with the demand, she explained.
The following county hospitals will have their oxygen systems evaluated by the Army Corps of Engineers:
— Adventist Health White Memorial Hospital, Los Angeles;
— Emanate Health Queen of the Valley Hospital, West Covina;
— Mission Community Hospital, Panorama City;
— Beverly Community Hospital, Montebello;
— Lakewood Regional Medical Center, Lakewood;
— PIH Health Hospital, Downey.
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.”
Dr. Christina Ghaly, the county’s director of health services, has said that the pipes of certain hospitals may not maintain adequate pressure and could even freeze.
Military experts will monitor any improvements considered necessary at the affected hospitals.
The county’s most recent figures showed a total of 773 available and staffed hospital beds, including just 57 adult ICU beds. Those numbers change rapidly throughout the day.
With increased hospitalizations come increased deaths, and the county on Thursday reported a record 290 fatalities — although some of those fatalities were due to the reporting backlog from the Christmas holiday weekend. County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer noted that there were underlying health problems for 86% of people who died from COVID-19 in the county, down from more than 90% in the early days of the pandemic.
That drop “indicates that, in fact, there are more people than ever not only passing away but passing away without any underlying health conditions.”
Again, Ferrer pointed to younger residents for pushing the number of cases upwards. She said an average of 4,419 individuals per day are testing positive for the virus among people aged 30 to 49, an 850% rise from the beginning of November when an average of 463 tested positive daily. The daily average has more than doubled among 18 to 29-year-old individuals.
But it’s not these younger patients that are dying from it. Younger residents are infected more frequently in a normal pattern, then pass the infection on to older residents who are at higher risk of being hospitalized or dying. Ferrer noted that an average of 40 people dies from the virus every day among people aged 80 and older — up from four at the beginning of November.
“With no decline in the number of new cases, our hospitals continue to be overwhelmed,” Ferrer said. “As more and more people are rushed to hospitals, the tragic fact is that hundreds more people will die every week from COVID-19. These trends, unfortunately, will continue into January, and if we do nothing, definitely beyond.”
Ghaly noted that many coronavirus testing sites would be closed Friday due to the New Year’s Day holiday.
Chidester said if residents could see what’s happening inside hospitals, they would see the crisis in healthcare workers’ eyes.
“It’s like the deer in the headlights,” she said. “They are overwhelmed. They are pale. They are trying to do the best they can with limited resources at this point because there are so many patients. When you go into the hospital and into the ICUs, it’s still very quiet, but believe me, it’s a disaster. It is just heart-wrenching what is happening within our hospitals. There is no doubt, and I’ll tell you right now, we are in the midst of a disaster.”
According to the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, Nearly 4,737,000 individuals had been tested as of Friday, with 16% of people testing positive.
The county’s coronavirus toll now stands at 790,582 cases and 10,552 fatalities.
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