Overwhelmed LA Hospitals Brace for Post-Christmas Wave of COVID-19 Patients
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Public health officials in California believe that another surge of COVID-19 cases caused by people gathering during the Christmas holiday could be a matter of time as hospitals statewide are overrun with coronavirus patients.
The situation is so dire that the top public health official in the US’ most populous county said that on average one COVID-19 patient is dying every 10 minutes and hospital staff are being forced to place gurneys into gift shops.
Health inspectors and authorities stepped up enforcement at restaurants and shopping malls over the post-Christmas weekend as they desperately seek to curb a coronavirus surge that already has filled some hospitals in California well beyond normal capacity.
Crowding at Los Angeles County shopping malls came under scrutiny before the holiday.
Several of them were cited and fined up to $500 for violating COVID-19 measures, which could include not keeping occupancy below 20 per cent capacity and not prohibiting eating and drinking, the Los Angeles Times reported on Saturday.
Coronavirus cases, hospitalizations and deaths have mounted exponentially in recent weeks and are breaking new records.
On Christmas Eve, California became the first US state to exceed 2 million confirmed COVID-19 cases.
On Saturday, the state reported more than 30,000 new COVID-19 cases as of Thursday, a 22 per cent decrease from the previous day.
The first coronavirus case in California was confirmed on January 25.
It took 292 days to get to 1 million infections on November 11. Just 44 days later, the number topped 2 million.
The crisis is straining the state’s medical system well beyond its normal capacity, prompting hospitals to treat patients in tents, offices and auditoriums.
As of Saturday, California had record numbers of COVID-19 patients in the hospital and in ICUs, at nearly 19,000 and more than 4,000, respectively..
Over the last week, the hospital has been inundated with more than 100 patients per day.
In a span of 10 months, California has become the viral epicenter of the nation.
