WITH the Christmas holiday nearing, Los Angeles County officials are pleading with the public to stay home and limit gatherings as the capacity of Southern California’s intensive care units hit 0% this week.
The situation in LA County — which has consistently been a leader in COVID-19 cases in the state and the country — continues to worsen as the county reports that two people are dying every hour from the virus in what Public Health Director Dr. Barbara Ferrer called “an explosive and very deadly surge.”
On Friday, December 18, the county reported 16,503 new cases of COVID-19 and 96 new deaths. It also confirmed the highest number of COVID-19 hospitalizations reported in a day with 5,100 people currently hospitalized, and with 20% of these patients in intensive care.
ICUs across Southern California’s 11 counties are being stretched thin and could further hit a tipping point, the state’s department of public health reported on Thursday, December 17, nearly two weeks after the area fell under the regional stay-at-home order.
The dip in ICU availability came on the same day LA County recorded 102 new deaths and 14,418 new cases of COVID-19, bringing the total to 8,664 fatalities and 580,325 infections.
The day before, the county reported a record daily high of 138 deaths and 22,422 confirmed cases, contributed by a backlog of over 7,000 test results.
Alarmingly, the county has reported more than 71,000 new COVID-19 cases since Monday, Dec. 14, an unprecedented acceleration of cases.
With Friday’s numbers, the county total now comes to 596,721 positive cases of COVID-19 across the county and 8,757 deaths, which puts even tougher pressure on area hospitals.
“What’s even more concerning is that we know that the hospitalization numbers that we’re experiencing today are really from the surge in the activity that surrounded the Thanksgiving holiday,” LA County Director of Health Services Dr. Christina Ghaly said during a press briefing on Friday.
As cases are expected to rise — LA Mayor Eric Garcetti said the seven-day positivity rate in the city has reached 19.6% — the county may soon be pushed to declare a “systemwide crisis” across its hospitals.
“We expect to have more dead bodies than we have spaces for them,” Garcetti said in a briefing on Thursday night, during which he said he will be quarantining at home after his 9-year-old daughter tested positive for COVID-19.
The county is also reportedly requesting for additional ICU beds and more health care staff from the state.
But in the meantime, the public can do its part by continuing to follow safety measures like wearing a mask and only going out for work or essential activities.
Further, getting tested is not a “permission slip” to interact with people outside of one’s household.
“A test only tells you whether or not you were positive with the virus at the moment you took the test. There’s a long incubation period of the virus, it can turn positive the next day. It does not mean that you are safe. It doesn’t mean that you are safe to interact with others and it doesn’t mean that others are safe to interact with you,” Ghaly said.
