In a country plagued by a long-feared winter storm of the coronavirus, California has emerged as the emblem of the pandemic’s devastation.
The state had some of the worst consequences: mortuaries filled, hospitals overwhelmed, oxygen shortages.
But that is slowly changing – especially in Northern California.
Yet it is far from clear that the state will strike back completely. Officials hope that stay-at-home measures and behavioral changes can bend the curve over time. The latest restrictions came into effect at the end of November, but holiday gatherings, shopping and travel are believed to have fueled the new rise in coronavirus cases.
The post-Christmas boom is the biggest concern for public health officials, who are worried about what additional infections will do to hospitals already filled with patients.
The hope is that there will be some relief in February as case numbers begin to stabilize.
This is where we are in the coronavirus crisis and where we may be headed:
National outlook
Of the 50 states, 49 are in a resurgence or recovery of one, said dr. George Rutherford, an epidemiologist and expert on infectious diseases at UC San Francisco, said. Hawaii is the only state that is not in a boom or immediately away.
‘Cases are everywhere,’ Rutherford said, ‘with many in the Southwest – in Arizona, Southern California; a bit in New Mexico and southern Nevada – but also across the Mid-South. ‘
Arizona and Rhode Island have fallen into Coronavirus over the past 14 days with the worst rates in the country. According to a Times analysis, Arizona surpassed California on January 2 with a worse per-capita case of coronavirus.
In recent weeks, hospitals in Phoenix, according to the Republic of Arizona, have begun turning away some ambulance patients from emergencies.
There are also now 16 states with COVID-19 death rates per capita over the past 14 days than California. Arizona and Kansas’ death toll over the past two weeks is at least 50% higher than that of California.
Positive signs
There are some signs of improvement in California.
The number of coronavirus-positive patients hospitalized throughout the state has risen just under 22,000 and new admissions to COVID-19 have also declined – from about 3,500 a day last week to between 2,500 and 2,600, according to Dr. Mark Ghaly, California’s Secretary of Health and Human Services.
The increase in COVID-19 hospitalizations has slowed, and Ghaly said it was “a very encouraging sign, but we are not out of the woods.”
“We know there is still a lot of COVID in our communities, that people can easily transmit it.”
In other developments:
- The state abolished his home order for Greater Sacramento. The move will allow counties to reopen hair salons and barber shops in a limited capacity and enable other businesses, including restaurants, to resume outdoor activities.
- In some parts of Northern California, the rate of infection is slow.
Negative signs
As Gov. Newsom said Tuesday, “California is still in its most intense boom to date.”
The state on Tuesday posted a high number of scores for both coronavirus cases and deaths, with both numbers well above the daily average.
A daily survey conducted by The Times 53 260 cases of coronavirus were found – the sixth highest one-day count – and 678 deaths were reported on Tuesday. The death toll was the second highest of any day in the pandemic, first obscured by the count Friday, when 685 deaths were recorded.
Tuesday was the first time California has recorded an average of more than 500 COVID-19 deaths a day in a week. According to a Times analysis, the state averages 520 deaths per day – roughly equivalent to one caliber that dies every three minutes.
Southern California is still being hit by the coronavirus. The boom after Christmas has worsened, but it is still not clear how hard it will hit hospitals, which are already at critical levels.
Although the number of COVID-19 patients admitted to hospital nationwide has recently stabilized at only 8,000, the steady increase has forced some provincial hospitals to set up beds in hallways and gift shops and let some patients wait 17 hours in ambulances before the space in the emergency room opens.
Officials warn that a new increase in infections will cause a wave of new patients in need of professional care – which is a unsustainable tension at hospitals and intensive care units that are already overburdened.
Further:
- Los Angeles County is fast approaching 1 million confirmed cases of coronavirus, a milestone that means 1 in 10 Angelenos is infected at some point during the pandemic.
- On Tuesday, 14,134 new cases of coronavirus were recorded in LA County. It has pushed the province to more than 15,000 new coronavirus cases a day in the past week, one of the worst daily averages and a warning sign of a future increase in hospitalizations. Officials predicted that an average of 15,000 cases per day would be a precursor to an even worse increase in hospitalizations.
- Since New Year’s Day, more than 2,300 people nationwide have died from COVID-19, and LA County has averaged about 231 deaths from the disease in the past week, a rate higher than ever during the pandemic. On Tuesday, 318 deaths were reported in LA County, linking the one-day highest number of deaths recorded on Friday.