For the twentieth consecutive day, practically no intensive care beds were available in much of California as hospitals struggled to treat wave after wave of new patients with COVID-19.
“This increase has been relentless,” said Dr. Ahmad Kamal, director of COVID-19 for Santa Clara County, during a news conference on Wednesday. “It is forcing our health care system to a breaking point.”
The availability of beds for intensive care in the Bay Area increased slightly on Wednesday to 7.4%, but the overall picture across the state looked bleak. Capacity remained at 0% in Southern California and the San Joaquin Valley, the two hardest hit regions.
A record 21,922 people were hospitalized with a confirmed case of COVID-19 in California on Wednesday, according to data compiled by The Chronicle. Almost 4,700 of these patients were in intensive care units.
There were 503 new COVID-19 deaths reported – well above the two-week average of just under 300 deaths per day.
The total number of confirmed cases in California has grown by 43,907, leading the state to more than 2.5 million confirmed infections since the pandemic began.
Health officials have asked residents to stay home, mask and avoid frivolous calls to 911 due to unprecedented pressure on hospitals and emergency medical systems.
“The ER is full,” said Dr. Jeffrey Chien, director of the emergency department at Santa Clara Valley Medical Center in San Jose. “People are waiting for beds – we are getting very creative with places to accommodate patients.”
The dire warning came after some hospitals in Santa Clara County reported waits of up to seven hours to put patients in beds.
Before Thanksgiving, the county averaged five cases per 100,000 people. It is now 50 per 100,000, according to Dr. Kamal, director of COVID-19 county.
“This is 10 times worse than before,” he said. “As terrible as it is, it can get worse.”
Hospital outbreak
The press conference came at a time when a report emerged that nearly 10 percent of the emergency room staff at a Gilroy hospital tested positive for coronavirus, the second outbreak to hit South Bay hospitals in recent weeks.
Eight of the roughly 80 emergency department employees at St. Louise Regional Hospital contracted the coronavirus last week, said Joy Alexiou, public information officer for the Santa Clara Valley Hospital and Health System, on Wednesday.
Infected team members are quarantined and there is no need for hospitalization.
Santa Clara County attorney James Williams said he expects the state to extend the regional home stay request for the Bay Area, which expires on Friday.
The order has already been extended to the southern California and San Joaquin Valley regions.
“We have every indication that it will be extended here in the Bay Area as well, because the situation in the hospital has not improved since it was issued,” said Williams.
Terrible milestone
The picture in Southern California was even more dire, with public health data showing that more than 1,000 residents in Los Angeles County died of COVID-19 last week.
“LA County has reached the terrible mark of more than 11,000 deaths due to COVID-19,” said director of the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, Dr. Barbara Ferrer, in a statement on Wednesday. “As a community, we must commit to preventing the spread of COVID-19 on its way so that we can save as many lives as possible.”
Los Angeles County health officials have instructed ambulance personnel not to transport patients with little chance of survival to hospitals and to conserve oxygen use.
California has assigned more than 1,420 additional medical professionals across the state in an effort to ease the pressure on hospitals facing new cases and hospitalizations.
The program is being administered by the state’s Emergency Services Office and includes members of the National Guard, emergency teams and more than 800 contractors.
Vaccine delays
The staggering number of new cases, hospitalizations and deaths occurs as vaccines continue to leak. Less than a third of the vaccine doses available have been administered in California so far, according to state data.
As of Tuesday, 459,564 doses of the 1,762,900 allocated to California have been administered, covering about 1.5% of the state’s entire adult population.
United States Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar said at a news conference on Wednesday that states should not allow priority recommendations to hinder the distribution of vaccines. He said states like California should open vaccination for older adults and vulnerable groups.
“Either way, you want to open up to people aged 70 or over, or 65 or over,” said Azar.
Pharmacy chains CVS and Walgreens said on Wednesday that they hope to complete the first round of vaccinations in specialist wards by January 25.
In a statement, CVS Health CEO Larry J. Merlo said the company is in negotiations with several states to make a limited number of doses available in its CVS pharmacies in the coming weeks before the broader launch.
Variant spreads
The concern continued to grow around a highly contagious coronavirus variant that was discovered in California.
Twenty-four new cases of a mutated SARS-CoV-2 strain, known as “B117” and first identified in the UK in December, were discovered in San Diego County on Tuesday.
Of the 24 newly confirmed patients, four are children under 10 years old. The infected are believed to have no travel history and come from 19 different families, county officials said.
“The fact that these cases have been identified in various parts of the region shows that this strain of the virus may be spreading rapidly,” said Wilma Wooten, a public health officer in San Diego County.
Governor Gavin Newsom canceled his daily update of COVID-19 on Wednesday in response to events that took place at the US Capitol, where protesters stormed the building during Congressional presidential confirmation procedures.
Earlier in the day, Newsom called for $ 600 stimulus payments to low-income Californians. With less than a month to go before California homeowners can resume evicting tenants who have not paid their rent, he also said he would support extending the state’s partial eviction moratorium.
Aidin Vaziri is a writer for the San Francisco Chronicle. Email: [email protected]