California reported on Sunday that 45,352 people recently tested positive for Covid-19, continuing an increase that pushed hospitals and their exhausted staff to the limit.
© Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times
FULLERTON, CA – DECEMBER 25: Nurse Joan Pung, works with a covetous positive patient room inside the ICU on Christmas Day at Providence St. Jude Medical Center on Friday, December 25, 2020 in Fullerton, CA. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)
In the United States, hospitals are rushing to keep up with outbreaks of patients with Covid-19 in numbers they have not seen at any other time in the pandemic.
On Sunday, the country reported 125,544 current hospitalizations for Covid-19, setting a new record, according to the Covid tracking project. The number exceeded 100,000 for more than a month.
Cases have skyrocketed since Thanksgiving Day and the impacts of Christmas and New Year celebrations are still occurring. As of Sunday, more than 20.4 million people have been infected with the virus in the United States and at least 350,000 people have died, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
The growing spread has also spared no hospital staff. At a California hospital, an outbreak possibly related to an air-powered inflatable costume at Christmas left nearly four dozen employees sick.
And health experts worry about what will happen to those numbers if infections continue to spread.
“This is about the total collapse of the healthcare system if we have another peak,” said Dr. Brad Spellberg, medical director at the University of Southern California Medical Center in Los Angeles County.
“And we, in the hospital, cannot prevent this. We can only react to that. It is the public that has the power to prevent the spread of the virus, obeying the public health guidelines that have been released.”
The increase in cases has also limited the launch of the vaccine, US surgeon general Dr. Jerome Adams said on Sunday. The Trump administration has pushed responsibility for administering vaccines to state and local partners, but they are overwhelmed by the flood of cases.
“When you ask what went wrong, we have to understand that this virus also occurred in the middle of an outbreak and much of the local capacity to vaccinate was being used to test and respond to outbreaks,” said Adams.
“We have to understand that this happened during the holidays and people in health departments and hospitals are also on vacation. But the good news is that we are seeing this increase rapidly thanks to our state partners.”
California hospitals on the edge
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In California, emergency room workers said hospitals are treating an unprecedented number of coronavirus patients, including some health professionals.
At Kaiser Permanente San Jose Medical Center, 44 emergency department workers tested positive for the virus between December 27 and January 1, according to Irene Chavez, senior vice president and area manager.
Chavez said in a separate statement that the medical center is investigating whether an air-powered inflatable suit may have influenced the spread.
“A staff member appeared briefly in the emergency department on December 25 wearing an air-powered costume,” said Chávez. “Any exposure, if it had occurred, would have been completely innocent and quite accidental, since the individual had no Covid symptoms and just sought to lift the spirits of those around him during a very stressful period.”
Chavez said in the statement that air-powered fantasies will no longer be allowed on the premises.
“At the very least, this should serve as a very real reminder that the virus is widespread, and often without symptoms, and we should all be vigilant,” she said.
In Southern California, experts in the design and construction of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers were sent to the Los Angeles area to “evaluate and, when necessary, update oxygen delivery systems” in about half a dozen hospitals.
A hospital in the area converted administrative offices and rest rooms into treatment areas for its coronavirus patients, said Col. Julie Balten, Los Angeles District commander for the Corps of Engineers.
Vaccines being administered more slowly than expected
Federal government officials said they plan to vaccinate 20 million people by the end of 2020, but the results have so far fallen short.
More than 13 million doses of vaccines have been distributed by the federal government to local states and counties, said the CDC Covid Data Tracker. Of these, more than 4.2 million doses of vaccine have been administered. This includes doses of the Moderna and Pfizer / BioNTech vaccines.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said on Sunday that the United States was left behind in vaccine administration, but he expects the momentum to recover in the first weeks of January.
“But if you look at the last 72 hours, there were about 1.5 million administered in people’s arms, which is an average of around 500,000 a day,” he said.
Fauci said the United States is not where it wants to be in vaccine administration.
“We have to do a lot better,” he said.
Dr. Leana Wen, a former Baltimore Health Commissioner, told CNN that the federal government needs to take a more active role in mass vaccination efforts.
“The problem is that local and state health departments have done everything else in this response. They are the ones who are figuring out how to increase testing, contact tracking and public education, and now we want them to take on the role of launch this massive vaccination campaign. They really need the help of the federal government, “she said.
So far, vaccines approved in the U.S. require two doses based on a few weeks apart – and the U.S. will continue to do so, rather than following the UK’s decision to potentially delay second doses, Dr. Anthony Fauci told CNN on Friday.
The United Kingdom has adopted this strategy in order to give the first dose to as many people as possible as quickly as possible, saying that it offers some protection.
“We make decisions based on data. We have no data on how to give a single dose and wait longer than the normal amount of time ”to give the second dose, said Fauci.
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