Southern California Continues To See Trend Of Troubling Coronavirus Figures
LOS ANGELES (CBSLA) -- Local hospital space is getting even more restricted as coronavirus cases continue to surge across Southern California.
"The crush of patients who've come in with respiratory illnesses in the last two to three weeks is overwhelming," said Dr. Brad Spellberg, Chief Medical officer L.A. County-USC Medical Center.
Ten months into the pandemic, health care workers say things aren't getting better, they're getting worse.
One month ago, on November 12, the five-day average of cases in L.A. County was just over 2,000.
On Saturday, the five-day average was above 10,000, which marked an increase of 370% in just one month.
RELATED: Anticipation High As California Creeps Closer To Coronavirus Vaccine Distribution
The number of available ICU beds in Southern California is dropping daily from 9% open on Wednesday to just 5.3% today.
That's more cases of more severity than ever, and while news of the vaccine is good, experts say it's critical for the surge to be contained soon.
"The tragedy would be to not make it to that point, where people didn't make it, where we look back and say you know what? What if?" said Dr. Jeffrey Galpin, an infectious disease specialist.
With the vaccine getting closer to the distribution date, health officials say people need to be more committed than ever to staying safe by wearing a mask, not gathering, and washing hands, so more of us are around to get the shot.
"We need to literally have our doctors send a message, our nurses and our leaders and they better get together because without doing that we have an opportunity, what a waste of technology, we have the answers," Dr. Galpin said.
The next challenge officials perceive will be convincing the public to get the vaccine, and that includes those who have concerns about how safe it is or who have doubted how serious coronavirus is.
Dr. Galpin says once the vaccine is distributed to the general public, at least 70% of the population needs to get it for cases to be decreased to a more manageable level.
