With nearly 9 million Californians ordered to stay at home, state and county leaders are preparing for the next stage of the coronavirus pandemic.
Governor Gavin Newsom said late Wednesday that the state has asked the Department of Defense to deploy the Navy's Mercy Hospital ship and two mobile hospitals to help care for residents expected to be hit by the new coronavirus. The number of hospitalizations has skyrocketed.
The governor said the state is working to increase the state's available beds by about 20,000 and will need them if more than half of Californians have coronavirus.
"If you assume that every person infected with the virus will infect two people, and our hospitalization rate is as high as 20%, in some cases our model is 20%, which will require a broader health care delivery system instead of 19,500 surge capacity for extra beds. "
This is just one of many cases (some modest, some even more extreme), and if the demand for COVID-19 cases and hospitalization increases rapidly over the next few days, state emergency officials will try to increase the number of available beds. The state estimates that California's existing hospital system can accommodate 10,000 patients.
The state is also procuring two currently non-operating hospitals, one in Southern California and the other in Northern California, as well as rental hotels and motels to live and treat patients with coronavirus.
Newsom said that if military medical assistance requests were approved, California should meet the standard of 20,000 beds.
US Secretary of Defense Mark Esper said in a CNN interview Wednesday night that Mercy Corps and another naval hospital ship will be deployed to help deal with the coronavirus crisis.
He said the hospital's ship will not accept patients with coronavirus. Instead, they will accept patients with other diseases, thereby freeing up the medical capabilities of the medical center.
Esper said military field hospitals will also be available to states, but will not treat patients with coronavirus.
More cases are expected in Los Angeles. Los Angeles County confirmed 46 new coronavirus cases Wednesday, including 8 in Long Beach and 2 in Pasadena. New cases bring the county's total to 190.
Barbara Ferrer, director of the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, said all new patients have been isolated and their close contacts have been isolated.
Health officials have warned that the number of people who test positive for COVID-19 is expected to increase in the coming weeks.
"We will see more positive cases today, tomorrow and the foreseeable future," Ferrer said. "We cannot stop the spread of COVID-19. All our strategies are to slow the spread."
Ferrer instructed anyone who was overwhelmed by the situation to contact the county's mental health department at (800) 854-7771.
Enhanced detection capabilities
are rapidly spreading in 50 U.S. states with diagnosed coronavirus cases, and nearly 9 million Californians live in in-situ shelters.
These special measures are designed to slow the spread of the coronavirus. The number of confirmed cases in California continues to increase: As of Wednesday, there were at least 836 cases and 17 deaths, compared with 157 and 3 deaths last week. Nearly 12,000 people in the state are self-monitoring for symptoms.
This increase is mainly due to recent improvements in test features, and the number is expected to continue to increase. On Tuesday, the U.S. Public Health Service reported that more than 58,778 people across the country were tested, of which nearly 32,000 were tested in public health laboratories and about 27,000 were tested in clinical laboratories. More than 8,000 tests were performed a day.
Officials say they are working to complete more coronavirus tests, so they have a better understanding of how many people are infected with the virus-but work is still very slow.
At the same time, they are urging people to stay home to avoid spreading the virus and overwhelming the hospital.
California counties continue to report an increase in the number of positives.
San Mateo County reported another 16 cases of COVID-19 on Wednesday, bringing the county's total to 81, including 1 death. The number of deaths reported in Santa Clara County has increased, bringing the total number of deaths in the county to six, the highest anywhere in the state. The most recent death was a man in his 60s.
According to health officials, the first two deaths were reported in Shenghuajin County, and two new cases were confirmed in Long Beach, bringing the total to 10 in the city. A city spokesman said the statistic does not include a patient from the US State Department. The director of the Veterans Affairs Hospital is also very active because he is not a resident of Long Beach City.
The Binjiang County Public Health Bureau also confirmed a new patient with COVID-19, the first case found in the city of Corona. Health officials said the man was a man in his 70s.
Orange County has announced 13 confirmed cases, bringing the total to 42.
News reference: https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-03-18/coronavirus-has-8-million-californians-under-shelter-in-place-orders
By:Alexis