• Updated case counts for state and local counties,

LOS ANGELES — California surpassed 25,000 coronavirus deaths since the start of the pandemic and officials disclosed Thursday that three more cases involving a mutant variant of the virus have been confirmed in San Diego County.

The grim developments came as an ongoing surge swamps hospitals and pushes nurses and doctors to the breaking point as they brace for another likely increase after the holidays.

“We’re exhausted and it’s the calm before the storm,” said Jahmaal Willis, an emergency room nurse at Providence St. Mary Medical Center in Apple Valley. “It’s like we’re fighting a war, a never-ending war, and we’re running out of ammo. We have to get it together before the next fight.”

Public health officials continued to plead with residents just hours before the start of 2021 not to gather for New

Year’s Eve celebrations.

In Los Angeles County, where an average of six people die every hour from COVID-19, the Department of Public Health tweeted out snippets every 10 minutes on lives that have been lost.

“The hair stylist who worked for 20 years to finally open her own shop.”

“A grandmother who loved to sing to her grandchildren.”

“The bus driver who put her daughter through college and was beaming with pride.”

The tweets — which included messages to wear a mask, physically distance, stay home and “Slow the spread. Save a life” — came on a day when the county reported a record 290 deaths. That would be a rate of one death every five minutes, though it included a backlog.

Los Angeles County, which has a quarter of the state’s 40 million residents, has had 40% of the deaths in California, the third state to reach the 25,000 death count.

New York has had nearly 38,000 deaths, and Texas has had more than 27,000, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University.

Infections are spreading rapidly. San Diego County confirmed Thursday that it had found a total of four cases of the virus variant that appears to be more contagious. A 30-year-old man tested positive for the variant Wednesday, and three more men — two in their 40s and one in his 50s — also have been confirmed to have the strain.

At least two of the men hadn’t traveled outside of the country and none had “any known interaction with each other,” the county said. Officials believed many more cases will surface.

Hospitals, particularly in Southern California and the agricultural San Joaquin Valley in the middle of the state, have been overrun with virus patients and don’t have any more intensive care unit beds for COVID-19 patients.

In Los Angeles County, hospitals have been pushed “to the brink of catastrophe,” said Dr. Christina Ghaly, health services director. “This is simply not sustainable. Not just for our hospitals, for our entire health system.”

Cathy Chidester, director of the county’s Emergency MedicalServices Agency, said hospitals are facing problems with oxygen with so many COVID-19 patients needing it because they are struggling to breathe. Older hospitals have infrastructure that is struggling to maintain oxygen pressure, and officials are trying to locate additional oxygen tanks for discharged patients to take home.

Ambulances are being forced to wait in bays before they can transfer patients inside hospitals — and in some cases, doctors are treating patients inside ambulances, she said. Some ambulances have waited as long as eight hours to offload patients because no beds were available.