(29 Dec 2020) California extended its strict stay-at-home orders in areas where intensive care unit beds are in short supply with some hospitals in hard-hit Los Angeles County already rationing care as health officials brace for a significant surge of the coronavirus in the new year.
The state's top health official, Dr. Mark Ghaly, said Tuesday that Southern California and the agricultural San Joaquin Valley still have what is considered no ICU capacity and that the state's restrictions would continue in those regions.
Ghaly implored the state's 40 million residents to stay home this holiday weekend, saying that while hospital and positivity rates are stabilizing from a Thanksgiving-related surge, that doesn't appear to be the case in the country's most populous county _ Los Angeles.
He added that the number of patients hospitalized "is increasing rapidly."
California reported more than 31,000 new cases Tuesday and 242 deaths, but the numbers are likely to climb this week as labs and counties catch up their reporting from the holiday week. More than 2 million people have been diagnosed with COVID-19 and nearly 25,000 people have died from the virus.
State officials notified hospitals late Monday they should prepare for the possibility that they will have to resort to "crisis care" guidelines established earlier in the pandemic, which allow for rationing treatment.
The surge has resulted in California regularly breaking records in case counts, hospitalizations and deaths, even as frontline workers and others begin receiving vaccines.
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