California became the first state on Wednesday to exceed 2 million cases coronavirus, just six weeks after he hit 1 million marks, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. The infection rate in California – in terms of the number of cases per 100,000 people – is lower than the US average, but, with 40 million inhabitants, exceeds other states in large numbers.
More than 23,500 Californians have died from the virus since the pandemic began.
The state has seen its number of cases increase exponentially in recent weeks, followed by rising rates of hospitalizations and deaths that have overwhelmed intensive care units and caused hospitals to put emergency room patients in tents and treat others in hospitals. offices and auditorium.
Advocates to avoid social gatherings for the holidays have sounded especially desperate in Southern California. Los Angeles County is leading the rise, accounting for a third of COVID-19 cases in the state and nearly 40% of its deaths.
“We know this emergency is our darkest day, perhaps the darkest in our city’s history,” said Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, urging people to cancel their holiday plans.
Renee C. Byer / The Bee Sacramento via AP, Pool
On Wednesday, the county reported the highest number of deaths and hospitalizations in a single day since the beginning of the pandemic, with 145 deaths and more than 6,000 people in hospitals. Over 9,000 people died due to COVID-19 in the county.
Orange County set a record again for 1,854 hospitalizations Wednesday, CBS Los Angeles reports. The county also reported 4,406 new cases of coronavirus and two additional deaths.
Dozens of nurses picketed in Orange County on Wednesday morning, protesting the deteriorating conditions inside hospitals that have reached a breaking point due to the exponential increase in coronavirus cases, the station said.
California Thanksgiving meetings, in which people ignored the rules of wearing masks and social distancing, were blamed for spreading the infection, and another wave of Christmas holidays could push stressed medical systems over the edge, officials warn.
Medical workers are discouraged and outraged by the scenes of crowded outdoor malls, packed parking lots and parents and children walking without masks, said the director of health services in the county, Dr. Christina Ghaly.
If LA County continues to see the same increase in COVID-19 infections in the next two weeks, hospitals may need to be rationally cared for due to a lack of medical staff, Garcetti said. “That means doctors will be forced to determine who lives and who dies,” he said.
Santa Clara County, near San Francisco, has dropped to 35 intensive care beds, putting hospitals almost dangerously reasoned, said Dr. Ahmad Kamal, the county’s director of health care.
Overall, California recorded the second highest number of deaths on Wednesday, at 361. The number of coronavirus patients in intensive care units nearly doubled in just three weeks, to 3,827 cases, while the state’s intensive care capacity it dropped to 1.1%, down from 2.5% just two days ago. The number of hospitalizations increased to 18,828 patients, more than double since December 1, with 605 new patients in one day.
However, there were slight but encouraging signs of hope.
The transmission rate – the number of people an infected person will in turn infect – has slowed for almost two weeks. The positive case rate reached a new high of 12.3% over a two-week period, but has begun to decline over the past seven days, from a peak of 13.3% to 12.6%.
The number of new positive cases fell to a relatively modest level of 39,069, with California averaging nearly 44,000 newly confirmed cases per day.
The state also had nearly 1,000 health care workers attending 91 facilities in 25 of the state’s 58 counties and opening a fifth alternative care facility in San Diego County.
The California National Guard is setting up about 200 beds on the vacant floors of the Palomar Health Center near San Diego, within the existing hospital complex, said Brian Ferguson, a spokesman for the Governor’s Office of Emergency Services. It could begin to accept Christmas patients, ameliorating overcrowded hospitals, especially in nearby Imperial County.
California expects more federal health workers to arrive by the end of the week, and Gov. Gavin Newsom said he expects more of the 3,000 contract health workers the state wants to arrive after the holidays.
The governor also said that more than 128,000 doses of vaccines were administered on Tuesday, another encouraging sign beyond the modest decrease in the transmission rate.
But Newsom also warned that any progress could dissipate quickly, leading to nearly 100,000 hospitalizations that some models project in a month if people ignore calls to avoid holiday gatherings, especially in inside.
“This virus loves social events,” Newsom said. “This virus thrives in that atmosphere.”