SACRAMENTO, California (AP) – For Corine Brandenburger, the coronavirus outbreak that has overwhelmed California hospitals is taking a very personal toll.
“Just today we had two deaths in this unit. And that’s almost the norm, ”said Brandenburger, who works at the COVID-19 unit in St. Louis. Joseph Hospital in Orange, south of Los Angeles work, said. “I usually see one to two every shift. Super sad. ”
‘They fight every day and struggle to breathe every day, even with a lot of oxygen. And then you just see them die, “Brandenburger said.” They just die. “
California has had no consequences for months, but now the virus is raging out of control, as it has been in many other states. In Arizona alone, California is at the top per capita in cases, and with 40 million residents, the large state sees incredible consequences: more than 2.5 million confirmed infections.
A resurgence after Halloween and Thanksgiving has yielded record hospitals, and now the most seriously ill of the patients are dying in unprecedented numbers. Health authorities in California reported 583 new deaths on Thursday and a two-day record of 1,042.
There have been more than 28,000 COVID-19 deaths in the state since the start of the pandemic.
Hospitalizations approach 22 000 and according to state models the number could be 30 000 by 1 February. Many hospitals in Los Angeles and other hard-hit areas are struggling to keep up and have warned that it should be possible to care for rations while beds with intensive care dwindle.
Lawmakers and public health officials have repeatedly praised medical workers as heroes as they struggle to treat the infected. Many nurses who have already stretched thin now care for more patients than is usually allowed under state law after the state began issuing exemptions that allow hospitals to temporarily circumvent a strict law of relationship between nurses and patients.
The nurses in the St. Joseph Hospital illustrates the toll that the work entails.
“The past week has probably been the most difficult week for me physically and emotionally,” said Donna Rottschafer, a nurse in the COVID-19 unit. “I have been here for 21 years and have seen more people in the past week. – the last few weeks really – then almost as combined in all my career as a nurse. ‘
“We see patients who are getting oxygen, and who are just struggling,” she said.
In northern Los Angeles County, the figures released Thursday showed a new daily case of nearly 20,000, an increase of 66.5% over the previous day, said Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti.
The more than 8,000 people admitted to the hospital were the largest number since the pandemic began early last year, Garcetti said.
The province has a fourth of the state’s population, but is responsible for about 40% of COVID-19 deaths.
Garcetti said federal authorities should step in to send the vaccines, money, doctors and personal protective equipment in the region, noting that medical workers and PBT flooded in New York when it peaked early in the pandemic .
“This is our highlight, and we need you,” Garcetti said. ‘We need national leadership, we need vaccines and we need resources to pay for them. Give us the and we know how to do the job. ”
Los Angeles is one of the 14 provinces in the two hardest-hit regions – Southern California and the agricultural San Joaquin Valley – that spent about two weeks in the intensive care unit’s beds for COVID-19 patients.
According to state data, the availability of intensive care at Bay Area hospitals dropped to its lowest levels until Wednesday and dropped from 7.4% to just 3.5% from Wednesday. The Northern California region, which includes 11 predominantly smaller and rural counties, has the best capacity at about 25%.
Earlier this week, state health officials caught hospitals off guard and scrambled them with new orders restricting non-essential operations and requiring hospitals that have scarce ICU space to accept patients from those who are exhausted, an order needed to take patients hundreds of miles carry over.
During an earlier boom, patients in the Imperial province along the border with Mexico were sent to hospitals as far away as the San Francisco Bay Area. But the current outbreak is so widespread that only 11 rural counties north of Sacramento and San Francisco are above the state threshold of having at least 15% capacity for coronavirus patients in ICU beds. Those below that level are under stricter restrictions on business operations.
The biggest fear is that hospitals will be transferred to rationing in a few weeks when people who ignore the rules of social distance to gather for friends and family members for Christmas and New Year’s Eve.
Officials have urged people to avoid mixing or traveling households in hopes of slowing the spread of the infection and preventing a boom from being called on top of a boom.
In an effort to keep people closer to home, the Newsom administration has issued stricter travel advice that says people from outside the country are “strongly discouraged” from entering California, and Californians should make non-essential trips more if 120 km from home.
“The next two or three weeks will determine everything for us,” said Garcetti, the mayor of Los Angeles. “Our own behavior determines everything we do.”
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Associated Press writers Kathleen Ronayne in Sacramento, John Antczak and Christopher Weber in Los Angeles and Janie Har in San Francisco contributed to this story.