SACRAMENTO, California (AP) – More Californians than ever are dying of coronavirus – a number of 525 running over their knees every day – and with the number expected to continue rising, state officials said on Friday they are sending more refrigerated trailers to act as makeshift morgues for overworked county coroners’ offices.
There are now 98 trailers to help county coroners store bodies “with respect and dignity,” said director of emergency services, Mark Ghilarducci. In Los Angeles County, where an average person dies every 6 minutes, temporary storage facilities have been installed in the parking lot adjacent to the coroner’s office.
The Office of Emergency Services is using state hospitalization data to predict how many people may die in the coming weeks. The state analyzes several models to try to predict hospitalizations and deaths. The projection of the “set” that combines all models estimates that another 10,000 people will die in the next three weeks.
It may take at least two weeks for the state to know the full extent of the virus’s damage during the holiday season, when many people ignored calls to stay home and not meet with friends and relatives. On average, about 12% of all positive results end up hospitalized, so if there is a sudden increase in new cases, hospitals will be overburdened even more. And more people will finally die.
Ghilarducci said the state has activated its “mass fatalities management plan” to try to avoid large backups in morgues.
“It is important to know that there is a plan, it is in progress and is active today,” said Ghilarducci. “We will continue to work on this with each of our 58 counties to ensure that all of these people are served in the most respectful manner.”
The gloomy forecast contrasted with an optimistic press conference held on Friday by Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti and Governor Gavin Newsom at Dodger Stadium, which is being converted into a vaccination center capable of delivering 12,000 doses a day .
California received more than 3.5 million doses of the vaccine and administered just over 1 million doses. Newsom said the state was on track to exceed its goal of distributing about 1.5 million doses by Friday.
Newsom tried to shed light on encouraging trends: hospitalizations, intensive care unit admissions and positivity rates – the percentage of people tested who have the virus – have declined in the past seven days.
The numbers were sufficient for the Newsom administration earlier this week to suspend home stay requests for the 13 counties in the Sacramento region, which includes the state capital and Lake Tahoe, a popular winter tourist destination.
The move allows hairdressing and manicure salons and other businesses to reopen and restaurants to resume dining outdoors and provides a slight increase in the number of customers at points of sale.
“We are beginning to see light at the end of the tunnel, not just the light that vaccines provide,” said Newsom.
California – the country’s most populous state, with almost 40 million residents – has averaged more than 41,000 new cases of coronavirus a day in the past two weeks, outpacing previous outbreaks. While California has the second highest number of deaths in the country, the state ranks 39th in the number of deaths per capita at 81.8.
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