Ambulances are on their guard as hospitals in Los Angeles are flooded with COVID-19 patients

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Los Angeles health officials have urged first responders to stop bringing adult patients who cannot be resuscitated to hospitals, citing a shortage of beds and staff because the latest COVID-19 boom threatens to overwhelm health care systems in America’s second largest. City.

The order, which was issued late Monday and is effective immediately, featured an increase in measures taken by state and local officials nationwide due to the worrying increase in COVID-19 infections, hospitalizations and deaths.

Ambulances were forced to wait several hours to drop off patients at some Los Angeles hospitals, causing delays in the state’s emergency system.

“Patients in traumatic full arrest who meet the current Ref 814 criteria for determining death should not be resuscitated and death should be determined at the scene and not transported,” said Marianne Gausche-Hill, medical director of the Los Angeles County Emergency Medical Services Agency, said in that directive.

Reference 814 refers to the province’s policy of determining and pronouncing death in a patient who has not been transported to a hospital.

California, the most populous U.S. state, has been particularly hard hit by the latest coronavirus outbreak, which some public health officials attribute to Thanksgiving holiday gatherings in November. Los Angeles is one of two provinces in California reporting a shortage of beds for intensive care units.

California on Monday reported 72,911 cases of COVID-19, a one-day record since the onset of the pandemic.

BOSSTUKKE

More than 20.8 million people have been infected with the virus in the United States since March, and the death toll stands at 355.00. A record 129,000 COVID-19 patients were in hospitals as of Tuesday.

The deteriorating situation has increased the pressure on government officials and local officials to accelerate the spread of the two coronavirus vaccines so far approved for emergency use.

Federal health officials said Monday that more than two-thirds of the 15 million coronavirus vaccines manufactured by Pfizer Inc and Moderna Inc have yet to be administered in the United States.

But some health professionals have started getting their second shot of the Pfizer vaccine this week. Both vaccines require two doses of three to four weeks apart.

The governors of New York and Florida have said they will punish hospitals that do not hand out shots quickly.

“It’s a matter of life and death,” New York Governor Andrew Cuomo told a news conference on Tuesday. “If a hospital has done all their health workers well, we will take back the stock and go to essential workers.”

Another three million doses of the two vaccines were sent to U.S. states on Tuesday, Acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller said in a statement, bringing the total to more than 19 million within 21 days.

The US government is considering halving the doses of Moderna’s vaccine to free up provision for more vaccinations. But scientists from the National Institutes of Health and Moderna said Tuesday it could take two months to investigate whether the halving doses would be effective. [nL1N2JG2A4}