(Newser)
– Hospitals in Los Angeles County are running out of oxygen to treat patients with COVID-19 and already do not have intensive care beds. With patients waiting for hours in ambulances outside hospitals for hospitalization, health officials are urging people to stay away from emergency rooms and not call 911 if they can, to prevent the situation from getting worse. . Hospital officials discussed the care of reasoning. The county health director said that, at this rate, almost 7,000 people can die of the disease by the end of January. Los Angeles Times reports. So far, in the pandemic, 9,305 people have died of COVID-19 in the county.
An ICU nurse said the nurses were burning. He seems to hear every day that two or three of them have taken over NPR. “You can see so many nurses who have depression,” the nurse said, adding, “It’s much worse than before.” A chief medical officer at a hospital said: “You have nurses who are assigned 20 patients when only five should be assigned.” Even more health workers themselves test positive for coronavirus – 2,191 in the second week of December. Hospitals even run out of objects such as plastic tubing that carries oxygen to patients’ lungs. County health officials have called on hospitals to discharge patients as soon as possible to make room for more. After the end of the holiday gatherings, it is feared that hospitals will face a new increase in patients. “The worst is yet to come,” said a county health official. (Read more stories about coronavirus.)