Central and Southern California have 0 percent ICU capacity

Central and Southern California have 0 percent ICU capacity

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California, the richest and most populous state in the richest country in the world, has long suffered from a shortage of hospital beds – just 1.8 beds per 1,000 people, according to 2018 data compiled by the Kaiser Family Foundation. Now, a record wave of coronavirus cases has eliminated the capacity of the intensive care unit in much of the state.



a group of people in a kitchen: Gabriella Ortega, a respiratory therapist, speaks to a healthcare professional who is helping to treat a Covid-19 patient at the Providence St. Mary Medical Center in Apple Valley, California, on December 17.


© Ariana Drehsler for The New York Times
Gabriella Ortega, a respiratory therapist, speaks to a healthcare professional who is helping to treat a Covid-19 patient at the Providence St. Mary Medical Center in Apple Valley, California, on December 17.

Southern California, its most populous region, and San Joaquin Valley, a central region, have 0 percent ICU capacity, keeping them under home order until at least December 28, said the Department of Public Health from California on Saturday.

Intensive care units in the Bay Area have 11.3% of capacity and the Greater Sacramento region has 16.9%. Both will likely remain under request until at least the new year.

Before the pandemic, the proportion of hospital beds per person in California was only slightly higher than the state of Washington and Oregon, both ranked last in the country. Many of the state’s hospitals kept the number of beds low, in part to limit costs.

ICU beds were also limited: California had just 2.1 beds per 10,000 people, more abundant than just 10 other states, according to 2018 KFF data.

California is the first U.S. state to report more than 2 million coronavirus cases to date. On Friday, the weekly average of new cases per day in the state was 36,418, according to the New York Times database. This represents a 21% increase over the previous two weeks.

The situation is now out of control, authorities and health professionals warned. At Martin Luther King Jr. Community Hospital in South Los Angeles, resources are so limited that stretchers have been placed in the gift shop and the lobby is being used to treat patients. And maintaining health facilities with sufficient staff has been another obstacle.

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