California deaths spur pleas to stay home for Christmas
LOS ANGELES >> California’s deadly Christmas was marked by pleas to avoid holiday gatherings outside the home and indoor church services in what could be a make- or-break effort to curb a coronavirus surge that already has filled some hospitals well beyond normal capacity.
Festive gatherings with friends and family might be tempting after a year that has seen the pandemic take at least 23,635 lives and ravage the economy as much of the state remained under a stay- at-home order that has closed nonessential businesses.
But officials repeated warnings that Thanksgiving gatherings where people didn’t wear masks or observe social distancing have resulted in a surge and begged people to forego Yule and New Year’s festivities.
In Sonoma County in
California’s wine country, a Native American casino announced it was canceling a planned private New Year’s Eve indoor event that could have drawn as many as 4,000 people. The Graton Resort and Casino is on sovereign native land that isn’t subject to state or county health orders but it had come under scrutiny for the event.
Gov. Gavin Newsom said hospitals are under “unprecedented pressure” and if current trends continue the number of those hospitalized because of the virus could double in 30 days.
“We could have a surge on top of surge on top of a surge in January and February,” Newsom said in a social media video posting Thursday. “I fear that but we’re not victims to that if we change our behaviors.”
Coronavirus cases, hospitalizations and deaths have mounted exponentially in recent weeks and are breaking new records. On Christ
mas Eve, California became the first state in the nation to exceed 2 million confirmed COVID-19 cases.
The first coronavirus case in California was confirmed Jan. 25. It took 292 days to get to 1 million infections on Nov. 11. Just 44 days later, the number topped 2 million.
The crisis is straining the state’s medical system
well beyond its normal capacity, prompting hospitals to treat patients in tents, offices and auditoriums.
As of Thursday, California had record numbers of COVID-19 patients in the hospital and in ICUs, at nearly 19,000 and nearly 4,000, respectively.
“In most hospitals about half of all of the beds are filled with COVID patients and half of all the ICU beds are filled with COVID patients, and two-thirds of these patients are suffocating due to the inflammation that’s in their lungs that’s caused by the virus,” said Dr. Christina Ghaly, director of the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services.
“They’re suffocating to the point that they can no longer breathe on their own, and they have to have someone put a tube down their throat, in order to oxygenate their organs. Many of these people will not live to be in 2021,” she said.
Hospitals have also hired extra staff and canceled elective surgeries — all to boost capacity before the cases contracted over Christmas and New Year’s show up in the next few weeks.
“We understand that people are tired, but public health measures are not the enemy — they are the roadmap for a faster and more sustainable recovery,” said a statement from the Public Health Alliance of Southern California, which includes 10 neighboring local health departments covering nearly 60% of the state’s population.
Los A ngeles County, which has accounted for a third of all coronavirus cases and nearly 40% of deaths, urged people to avoid attending indoor religious services, even though they are permitted with social distancing requirements.