SoCal Hospitals Brace For Spike In COVID-19 Patients
LOS ANGELES (CBSLA) – With COVID-19 hospitalizations rising to unprecedented levels, California is on the edge of a sweeping state-mandated stay-at-home order which could take effect within days.
On Thursday, California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced that regions of the state whose ICU capacity drops to 15% will see the closure of all bars, wineries, personal service businesses, hair salons and barbershops for at least three weeks.
"If I do shut down this time around, there is no way that I can reopen," said Marina Fermanyan, who owns Laque Nail Bar in North Hollywood.
All of Southern California has been grouped into one region and its ICU availability was at 20.6 percent Thursday.
According to the latest numbers Friday from the California Department of Public Health, Los Angeles County has 2,769 people hospitalized with the coronavirus, a daily record since the pandemic began. Of those, 23% are in ICUs. L.A. County has 486 available ICU beds left.
"It's unfortunate, but not unexpected," said Dr. Thomas Yadegar with Providence Cedars- Sinai Tarzana Medical Center. "We have definitely seen an increase, not only in hospitalized patients, but more importantly, critical care patients."
Because hospitalizations tend to lag about a week behind infections, doctors say there could still be an influx of patients tied to the recent Thanksgiving holiday.
Yadegar understands the economic impact the stay-at-home order would have, but says that right now, people from different households need to stop interacting with each other.
"As soon as you bring people together, that's what this virus needs to propagate," Yadegar said.
He points to the fact that when restrictions were enacted in the spring, hospitalizations did go down. He's hoping that will be the case again, so ICUs don't run out of space.
"It's not only the COVID-19 patients that we care about, we care about all the patients in the community," Yadegar said. "Because we want to make sure that we have those precious resources to take care of them if they, God forbid, get a heart attack or stroke or other kind of medical emergencies."
L.A. County Sheriff Alex Villanueva said Thursday that his department will begin targeted crackdowns on large gatherings and super-spreader events.
