LOS ANGELES (CBSLA) – Los Angeles County hospitals see no relief and are in crisis mode on Christmas Day as the number of coronavirus infected patients in hospitals continues to rise at an unprecedented rate.
There were 148 coronavirus deaths in Los Angeles County on Thursday, a record for the second day in a row.
According to the latest figures from the California Department of Health on Friday morning, 6,770 people were hospitalized in Los Angeles County, which is also a record.
Of this, 19.8% was in intensive care.
With many families expected to ignore California’s orders and gather for Christmas, and thousands of people attending home services, that number is likely to increase. The director of the Los Angeles County Health Department, Dr. Christina Gali, said that by next week the daily number of VIDOC patients in hospitals is likely to exceed 7,500.
I mean, I just scream, I don’t understand, people don’t understand, they don’t see what we see, and it’s terrible to see people get sick without their families, Vanessa Orozco, a phlebotomy lab technician, told CABL on Thursday.
Sister Mary Jo Piccione, hospital chaplain, visits a coronavirus patient at Providence St. Mary’s Medical Center in Apple Valley, California, December 22, 2020. (Francine Orr/Los Angeles Times/Getty Images)
Los Angeles County officials called on people to stay indoors and avoid Christmas meetings and church services indoors. Last weekend, the district was forced to allow places of worship to hold their services indoors after the Supreme Court ruled on a controversial issue.
Involvement in indoor services will result in the transfer of COVID-19 and additional hospitalizations that the health care system is currently unable to treat, the Los Angeles County Department of Health said in a statement Friday.
It doesn’t matter what the Supreme Court says, and given what’s going on right now, it’s just too risky to meet indoors with people who don’t live with you.
In a letter to the priests and pastors of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, Archbishop Joseph Gomez recommended that the services continue to be celebrated in the open air, even if the services were allowed indoors.
According to Gala, 96 percent of the 70 Los Angeles County hospitals with emergency rooms diverted ambulance traffic to other medical facilities at some point on Tuesday due to overcrowding – compared to a normal average of 33 percent at this time of year.
Ghali said that every day about 750 new VIDOC patients are admitted to the hospitals.
By Thursday morning, 723 beds were available in the province’s 70,911 hospitals and a total of 63 IC beds – 42 beds for adults and 21 beds for children.
Most hospitals report an official shortage of available beds at ICUs that already exceeds the capacity of approved ICUs and their staff, Ghali said Wednesday.
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The total capacity of the ICU in the province is about 2,500 beds. According to the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, hospitals last week increased their capacity to an average of 2,660 beds per day. On average, about 37% of these beds were occupied by coronavirus patients.
The average number of IDVOC patients admitted in the province has increased since the ninth financial year. In November there was an increase of 547%. The average number of deaths per day increased by 467%, from 12 per day at the beginning of November to 69 per day last week. The average daily number of new cases increased by 907%.
The capacity of the ICU in Southern California is zero.
(© Copyright 2020 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All rights reserved. City News Service contributed to this report).
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