A training holiday in cases of coronavirus could lead to longer home orders for Southern California and other areas.
The earliest date that Southern California could qualify to leave the existing order was Monday, but state officials said Sunday that the region and several other parts of the state will likely have to continue for a few more weeks to follow the restrictions. , as the recent boom pushes hospitals to the breaking point.
The restrictions include reduced capacity at stores; the closure of some businesses, including hair salons, nail salons, card rooms, museums, zoos and aquariums; and a ban on most gatherings, hotel accommodation for tourism and outdoor restaurants.
Last week, Gavin Newsom’s government expressed doubts that the regions in Southern California and the San Joaquin Valley would be out of state order by Monday due to a steady erosion of beds for intensive care units for COVID-19 patients.
Stay-at-home orders remain in effect until the region’s expected ICU capacity is equal to or greater than 15%, according to state guidelines. In the Southern California and San Joaquin Valley region – which covers 23 of 58 California counties – the currently available ICU capacity stands at 0%.
This does not mean that there are no unoccupied ICU beds at all, as the state uses a weighted formula to ensure that some remain open to patients who do not have COVID-19. But officials and experts warn that an overcrowded ICU could overload doctors and nurses, jeopardizing the quality of care for everyone, including COVID-19 patients, victims of heart attacks and those seriously injured in a car accident.
“It is likely that the regional home stay order will expand to many regions in California,” the California Department of Public Health said in a statement Sunday. Once a country reaches the ICU threshold of 15% or more, it must maintain that status for four weeks.
The agency reported that the state has so far confirmed 2,122,806 cases, with more than 24,000 deaths. There were more than 50,000 newly confirmed confirmed cases on Saturday.
On Saturday, Los Angeles health officials reported 29,423 new cases of coronavirus over Christmas Day and Saturday combined. Friday’s numbers – 15,538 cases – were delayed due to an outage with the Spectrum Internet service in the LA area.
Local health agencies also reported 136 deaths over the two-day period. The country has averaged about 14,000 new coronavirus cases per day in the past week and 88 COVID-19 deaths.
Hospitals across the country are overwhelmed. Some oxygen supplies become scarce. This is critical for the treatment of seriously ill patients with COVID-19 who have begun to suffocate due to their virus-inflamed lungs. Emergencies are so crowded that ambulances have to wait as long as eight hours to drop off patients or are sometimes sent further to hospitals.
According to one scenario, experts predict that by mid-January there could be a boost in new cases of coronavirus, an increase in hospitalizations by late January and early February, and another outbreak of deaths by early to mid-February.
The rapid succession of holidays in the autumn and winter months usually enables people to celebrate with loved ones in a short period of time and spend time on it.
But this leaves little time for the cases of coronavirus to start falling before it increases again, which in addition causes congestion.
Dr. Robert Kim-Farley, a medical epidemiologist and infectious disease expert at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health, said anyone exposed to COVID-19 during a Christmas party could be infected on New Year’s Eve.
However, the individual may be asymptomatic, going to a New Year’s Eve and unknowingly spreading the disease, he said.
Combined with a high infection rate – about 1 in 95 in Los Angeles County is infected with the virus, according to provincial estimates – the holiday creates a ‘viral wildfire’, he said.