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Good morning.
In the Golden State, the average number of new Covid-19 cases per day dropped to 6,641 last week – not the lowest they were, but the trajectory is notable for the rate at which positivity rates have fallen, especially compared to the slower flattening of affairs after the summer boom of the state.
As the Los Angeles Times reported, California’s declining numbers can probably be attributed to a combination of factors, including widespread behavior, vaccinations and, ironically, the large number of people who have already had the virus.
[Read more about the factors affecting when the United States could reach herd immunity.]
At the same time, the country is facing another unfathomable milestone: half a million deaths from the coronavirus, a month after the United States passed 400,000.
Leaders remain cautious as dangerous coronavirus variants gain traction.
And as vaccination continues, experts say we may lose sight of the inequalities that have helped the California winter crisis; early data suggest that white Californians are vaccinated faster than groups hit harder by the virus.
These inequalities were fully apparent in the Martin Luther King Jr. Community Hospital, as my colleague Sheri Fink recently reported in this disturbing look at the heart of Los Angeles’ boom when hospitals were overwhelmed and hundreds died.
I asked her about what Californians should learn from the emergency of the hospital. Here is our conversation:
Early in the pandemic sent you some of the earliest, most disturbing shipments from New York hospitals, and you too reported from Houston during the summer. What was different about reporting from LA during this boom? How did it compare?
Unfortunately, it was all too familiar. The differences were similar, with an excessive impact of the disease among Latinx and Black communities and in less affluent areas. Hospitals again had to care for far more critically ill patients than they were designed and staffed to scramble to create space and recruit reinforcements.
The need among medical providers was if it was more acute. They ran a marathon and were exhausted and often disbelieving about the denial they see in the larger community. Although there is now more knowledge on how to manage patients with severe Covid, the level of deaths in the hospital where I reported more than a week ago was terrible.
One difference now is that if you are at a higher risk of progressing to severe Covid-19 – if you are 65 years or older or have certain chronic medical conditions – that there is a type of treatment that shows that deaths reduced.
But the prisoner is that you have to get the infusion of monoclonal antibodies early before you have to be admitted to the hospital. It blocks the entry of the virus into cells, and various species have received emergency approval from the FDA. In South LA where I reported, it appears that relatively few patients who benefit from it have had access to them.
There were also some positive differences: health care providers have the necessary protective equipment to keep themselves safe. And many of them have been vaccinated against the virus that causes Covid-19.
In the story, did you talk to dr. MLK CEO Elaine Batchlor spoke, expressing frustration that her hospital was overwhelmed, while other larger hospitals had fewer patients. But civil servants said each time during the boom that they worked closely with hospital groups and providers to compare the burden.
Can you explain a little more whether or not the hospital was able to transfer the significant number of patients to larger institutions with better resources?
Although the boom slowed, MLK remained at the top or in the area for the ratio of Covid patients per licensed hospital bed. For this particular hospital, there was little evidence of the burden of the burden, other than that government officials made the staff of the national guard and contract nurses available.
Dr. Batchlor told stories that he personally called other hospitals to have patients relocated. I was present when government officials let hospital leaders know that two local hospitals were staffed to receive a training patient, but that was after the curve had already bent. Doctors from MLK said that when they try to transfer patients who according to them need specialized care to other facilities, they are refused.
In their minds, it had to do with the pay mix of their patients, of whom only 4 percent have commercial insurance. They said it was a long-standing problem that only underscored the pandemic.
What do you look for best now that vaccinations are on the rise? (I am thinking of nationwide trends in treatment, worrying hotspots, or the fairness of vaccine vaccination.)
After reporting overseas, I looked at the explosion of vaccines in our communities and our country, but also in other countries that did not have the means to support manufacturing in advance or buy up large parts of the world supply.
The countries with the lowest incomes so far have had almost no access to authorized vaccines. If equity was not in itself an important enough value, the virus reminds us of the shared fate of mankind.
New strains can emerge wherever it continues to circulate, and some experts believe that the global economic recovery depends on the virus being controlled around the world, not just in rich countries.
[Read the full story here.]
Here’s what you missed this weekend
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Jill Cowan grew up in Orange County, graduated from UC Berkeley and has reported all over the state, including the Bay Area, Bakersfield and Los Angeles – but she always wants to see more. Follow here or at Twitter.
California Today is edited by Julie Bloom, who grew up in Los Angeles and graduated from UC Berkeley.