Public health officials announced 13,756 new COVID-19 cases and 60 more deaths on Saturday, as Los Angeles County exceeded 600,000 cases, but also had to change the department’s safety policy regarding places of worship for to account for the recent decision of the Supreme Court.
To date, the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health has reported 610,372 positive cases of COVID-19 and a total of 8,817 coronavirus-related deaths.
On December 11, the county reached 500,000 cases, and since then, more than 100,000 new cases have been reported – the fastest acceleration of new cases during the pandemic.
The order of the Los Angeles County Health Officer was amended on Saturday to align with recent Supreme Court rulings on places of worship. The court ruled that such places are allowed to provide faith-based services both indoors and outdoors, with mandatory physical distance and face coverings on both the nose and mouth, which must be worn permanently over time. what are on the spot. Presence is not allowed to exceed the number of people who can be accommodated, maintaining a physical distance of six feet between separate households.
Public health has strongly recommended that places of worship continue to provide outdoor, physically spaced and face-to-face services to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
If there is a light on the horizon, then the initial allocation of the Pfizer vaccine is currently used by acute care hospitals to vaccinate front-line healthcare staff. A second Pfizer vaccine allocation is expected to arrive next week and will be used to inoculate additional health care workers in acute care hospitals, Public Health announced.
“While we now see the light at the end of the tunnel, we have not yet reached the light,” said Dr. Brad Spellberg, chief physician at Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center. “The pandemic will continue for many, many months after we start vaccinating people. This is not the time to start ignoring public health recommendations and recommendations. Our hospitals are overcrowded in LA County.
“LA County is now on its way to becoming the epicenter of the pandemic,” he said. “We are not yet at the stage where other parts of the world, including the United States, have suffered catastrophic consequences, but we are moving in that direction. we stop spreading, our hospitals will be overwhelmed. “
A record 5,424 people were hospitalized with the disease on Saturday – more than 300 on Friday – and 21% of them are in the ICU. The capacity of hospitals in the county is very limited, and health workers are difficult to maintain with the need for care.
NBCLA’s Whitney Ashton talks to nurse nurse Alice Benjamin about questions about COVID-19 vaccines that were recently approved by the FDA for emergency use. As seen on NBCLA on Friday, December 18, 2020.
“We’re crushed. I’m not going to wear this. We’re crushed,” Spellberg said. “Most days last week, we had zero ICU beds open in the morning and we had to fight – ‘we can move this patient here,’ ‘we can move that patient there.’ … We are already expanding care in areas of the hospital where we do not normally provide that type of care.
“… And they’re not just patients with COVID,” he said. “There are car accidents and heart attacks and victims of violence. They need a place to go to receive critical care. We can only react. “We can’t stop the spread. We need the public to listen to these mitigation strategies to slow the spread, or we’re going to be completely out of bed.”
Spellberg also expressed the frustration felt by health workers caused by those who deny the severity of the virus and downplay its impact on hospitals.
“The amount of moral courage needed to run to danger makes it very frustrating for our heroes to come to our hospitals every day and take care of patients when we watch videos and hear people who don’t take public health strategies seriously,” he said. he said. .
His comments came amid a wave of cases that has erupted in the county since November, exacerbated by the Thanksgiving holiday and accompanying
meetings that took place despite warnings against them.
Dr. Christina Ghaly said that as of Friday morning, there were 699 hospital beds available in Los Angeles County – with a population of 10 million – and only 69 intensive care beds. This is down from Thursday’s figures of 716 general beds and 92 ICU beds. Ghaly noted that the figures are a “snapshot in time” from a daily morning survey of 70 hospitals in the county with “911” receiving emergency rooms, and the figures can fluctuate dramatically throughout the day.
In recent days, county hospitals have operated close to their total licensed capacity of about 2,500 ICU beds.
Last week, county hospitals operated an overall average of about 10,360 non-ICU beds per day, based on physical space and available staff. In general, county hospitals are allowed to operate approximately 17,000 non-ICU beds, but this number is restricted by the availability of staff to treat patients.
Passengers talk about taking a COVID test before and after, so they can go home for Christmas. Vikki Vargas reports December 18, 2020.
Ghaly echoed Spellberg’s warning that breaking into hospital patients threatens the care of everyone, not just COVID-19 patients.
“Everyone has seen first hand how devastating this pandemic has been and continues to be, and they know that we are fighting this unprecedented growth that is overwhelming our hospitals and really risks undermining the ability of … hospitals to care for all who need their services, “she said.” And this is in danger right now. “
On Thursday, the state announced that the region of 11 counties in Southern California has formally reached zero capacity in intensive care units. The designation does not mean that there are no beds available, as the state adjusts the capacity figure according to the ratio of COVID patients occupying the ICU space.
Ghaly said earlier that hospitals in Los Angeles County had an average of about 600 coronavirus hospitalizations a day, up from about 500 last week. Based on current trends, hospitals could be admitted anywhere from 750 to 1,350 new COVID admissions per day by the end of December, she said.
The director of public health, Barbara Ferrer, said that the average daily deaths caused by COVID-19 in the county have increased by 267% since November 9, reaching 44 per day since last week and probably even higher this week, having given the recent rising death toll. Ferrer said he is equivalent to two people in the county who die from COVID-19 every hour.
County officials said the local transmission rate for COVID-19 – the average number of people each COVID-positive person infects with the virus – is now 1.2, up from 1.16 a week ago. Whenever the rate is above 1, the number of cases is expected to increase.
The county also estimates that one in 80 residents who are not hospitalized or in quarantine / isolation are infected with the virus, probably without knowing or showing symptoms, yet still able to infect others.
“Based on the science of COVID-19 transmission, the devastation we are experiencing now is due to the fact that people who were unknown to be infected with the virus have been in close or direct contact with another person or group long enough to infect them. “County Health Officer Dr. Muntu Davis said Thursday.
The Food and Drug Administration issued an emergency use authorization for the Moderna coronavirus vaccine on Friday night.
“It is possible that they appeared at work or when they traveled or visited with people outside the homes with whom they do not live on vacation, either here in the county, or in another county or another state or another country.
“The science of COVID-19 transmission also indicates that transmission occurs more easily in crowded spaces, with many people nearby, close contact settings, especially if people have conversations very close to each other and indoors. or poorly ventilated enclosed spaces. he said. “And that the risk of COVID-19 spreading is higher in places where these three conditions overlap.”
The Southern California region – which covers Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Diego, Imperial, Inyo, Mono, San Bernardino, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara and Ventura counties – is under a state-imposed regional state ordered ban on meetings of people from different households and forced the closure of many businesses, while restricting capacity to others.
Schools with exemptions may remain open, along with “critical infrastructure” and retail stores, which will be limited to 20% of capacity.
Restaurants are restricted to delivery and delivery service only.
Hotels are allowed to open “only for critical infrastructure support”, while churches would be restricted to outdoor services only.
The order will remain in force until at least December 28.