Calif. clinician: ‘We’ve never seen this much death’

LOS ANGELES — California is closing in on 30,000 deaths from the coronavirus pandemic as hospitals scramble to find beds for severely ill patients during a continuing spike in COVID-19 case numbers.

The state reported 468 deaths Sunday, a day after setting a record one-day total of 695, according to the Department of Public Health. California’s death toll since the start of the pandemic rose to 29,701.

Meanwhile, the number of hospitalizations is nearly 22,000.

A surge of cases following Halloween and Thanksgiving produced record hospitalizations in California, and now the most seriously ill of those patients are dying in unprecedented numbers. Officials fear another surge in coming days connected to gatherings during Christmas and New Year’s Eve celebrations.

Already, many hospitals in Los Angeles and other hard-hit areas are struggling to keep up, and they are warning that they may need to ration care as intensive care beds dwindle.

Nursing homes and rehabilitation centers are accepting patients transferred from Los Angeles County hospitals struggling to find space for incoming coronavirus cases.

Every intensive care unit bed at St. John’s Regional Medical Center in Oxnard is full, and emergency rooms are packed across Ventura County, about 60 miles northwest of Los Angeles, the Ventura County Star reported.

When a code blue is sounded at the hospital signaling a cardiac arrest, nurse Yesenia Avila says a little prayer. On one shift, she said three COVID-19 patients died within an hour.

“We’ve never seen this much death before,” Avila told the newspaper.

“I’ve been in health care for 22 years, and I’ve never been scared. Right now, I am. … I fear for my children.”