About 1 in 5 coronavirus tests performed daily in Los Angeles County are positive, a surprising rate that authorities say illustrates the continuing uproar of the pandemic in the region and predicts serious consequences for an already besieged health system.
Around 1 November, approximately the starting point of the current coronavirus wave, only 1 in 25 tests confirmed an infection.
Authorities warn that arithmetic is as bleak as it is simple. When such a high proportion of people test positive and tens of thousands of tests are performed each day, the case count gets incredibly high. And when transmission to the community is so prolific, officials warn that activities that seemed mundane months ago now have a greater risk of infection than ever.
LA County on Thursday recorded the fourth highest number of coronavirus cases in a single day, according to a Times count from local health jurisdictions, possibly an early sign of an increase in new cases linked to Christmas parties.
On Thursday, 18,764 new cases were recorded, well above the daily average of the last week, which was around 14,000. There were 205 deaths in COVID-19, according to the Times count, the sixth highest number of deaths in a single day. LA County now reports an average of 171 deaths a day last week.
These numbers “can be narcotic”, acknowledged Mayor Eric Garcetti, but emphasized that the number of hospitalizations represents a three-fold increase over the previous month and the maximum in a single day since the start of the pandemic.
California published at least 37,000 new cases of coronavirus on Thursday, continuing a trend in the last week when the state daily total fell by about 39,000. This is modestly less than the peak in mid-December, when California reported up to 45,000 new cases a day.
Garcetti, however, cautioned against seeing this leveling as a “plateau that will automatically fall”.
“I believe this is just a break before a new peak,” he said.
Experts fear that the count will start to increase systematically at the end of the week, as people who were exposed to the virus at Christmas or New Year begin to get sick and get tested. While many of those infected may experience only mild symptoms, or none at all, officials have long warned that the number of daily cases is only the beginning of a disastrous domino effect.
A certain proportion of those who test positive – state officials estimate about 12% – will be sick enough to require hospitalization in the weeks following exposure. And 12% of these people will get worse to the point that they need intensive care. Some will not survive.
A large number of cases on the front lines will invariably lead to more suffering and pain in the future.
“If transmission within Los Angeles County, as we suspect it probably increased, increased during the holidays, then we will have an increase in hospitalizations,” said Dr. Christina Ghaly, director of health services for the county, this week.
Conditions across LA County’s health care system are already bleak.
Hospitals are reporting a significant shortage of staff because many staff are ill or quarantined. Authorities have warned they are running out of ambulances available, with emergency rooms so full that transport vehicles need to wait hours to drop off patients – forcing callers to 911 to wait even longer for paramedics and emergency technicians to arrive. .
Even the supply of vital oxygen has been depleted both because of the great need and the problems with aging hospital infrastructure.
LA County Emergency Medical Services Agency director Cathy Chidester said on Thursday that there continues to be a shortage of oxygen tubes needed to send COVID-19 patients in recovery from the hospital home, which would help to release beds.
The aging oxygen delivery systems of some hospitals, which have recently started to fail in several hospitals due to aging and freezing amid unprecedented oxygen demand, have been temporarily stabilized.
“But they need to be fixed,” said Chidester. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is investigating problems at 11 Southern California hospitals for infrastructure problems that need to be resolved quickly.
ICU beds across LA County are essentially overcrowded, forcing critically ill patients to be treated in areas that are not normally designed for them, such as recovery rooms.
As of Wednesday, 1,635 coronavirus-positive patients were in intensive care across the county – seven more patients than the day before and three times the number for Thanksgiving, according to state data released on Thursday. .
On Tuesday, the total number of COVID-19 hospitalizations in LA County reached a new record: 8,098. The number fell slightly on Wednesday to 8,074, but the numbers are quadrupling from Thanksgiving. .
In the past few days, the daily net increase in COVID-19 hospitalizations in LA County has been around 100, up from 220 in mid-December.
“Hospitals continue to be inundated with COVID patients,” said Ghaly. “Although the numbers are stabilizing a little, they are doing so at a rate that is well above our comfort point for all hospitals – especially when we face another potential increase in the coming weeks.”
The real picture of what the rest of January will look like will begin to emerge next week, where hospitalization numbers will give the first indication of what the rest of the month will look like.
Hospitals across the state were asked by officials to develop plans for “crisis care patterns” that would be implemented when health facilities were so overburdened that they would need to start prioritizing resources based on the likelihood of patients surviving.
Four hospitals notified the California Department of Public Health “that they were approaching or going into crisis treatment at any given time,” according to a statement released on Thursday.
“These hospitals received immediate support and technical assistance, improving conditions for better care for patients,” says the statement. “No county has reported that it is rationing life-saving supplies or care.”
The state agency declined to name the hospitals, saying it could discourage “these critical notifications” or “individuals in the community from seeking essential care”.
Southern California Methodist Hospital in Arcadia notified the state on December 29 that it would implement the crisis treatment guidelines. That hospital recently took the grim step of putting together a screening team to make decisions about the possible allocation of limited resources, but officials said on Wednesday they had not yet had to ration any care.
Methodist, however, did not notify the county that it has implemented crisis care standards.
An additional 560 COVID-19 deaths among Californians were reported on Wednesday, just below the 575 single-day record that was reported on New Year’s Eve, according to a Times count from local health jurisdictions. At least 451 additional deaths were reported Thursday, according to a preliminary count.
California has experienced an average of 330 to 390 deaths per day recently, and LA County, between 150 to 190 deaths per day.
The growing death toll is overwhelming funeral homes and causing state officials to dispatch refrigerated trucks across California to contain corpses as hospital morgues fill up. The National Guard was called to LA County to assist in the temporary storage of bodies in the coroner’s office and to relieve pressure on hospital morgues and private morgues that ran out of storage space for corpses.
Given current conditions and the potential for even more bleak days ahead, officials said the only way to fight the pandemic is for everyone to redouble their efforts to contain the potential transmission – and take all necessary precautions to keep themselves and their loved ones safe. loved ones, friends, neighbors and co-workers are infected.
“While it is fair to say that the virus is out of control, I want to remind people that it really depends on us, as a community, whether or not we want to get it back under control,” said Ghaly. “Thanksgiving meetings put a lot of pressure on hospitals … but we cannot allow it to stop us and we cannot allow it to make us defeatists. We have the power to control this virus if we decide to do that, and it really depends on us. ”