23,000 state deaths

The nurses of California were afraid.

It was Christmas Eve, and they weren’t home with their families. They were working, always working, completely gowned up — and worn down.

They were frightened by what people were doing, or not doing, during the coronavirus pandemic that has already killed more than 320,000 nationwide and shows no signs of slowing down.

They were even more terrified of what is next.

“Every day, I look into the eyes of someone who is struggling to breathe,” said nurse Jenny Carrillo, her voice breaking.

A charge nurse at Providence Holy Cross Medical Center in Los Angeles’ San Fernando Valley, Carrillo is haunted by the daily counts of COVID-19 patients. Dark shadows circle her eyes.

By Tuesday evening, the hospital had 147 coronavirus patients, a record for Holy Cross, but a tiny fraction of the 2 million cases recorded in California since the pandemic began.

Close to 19,000 people were hospitalized in the state Wednesday, and models project the number could top 100,000 in a month, unimaginable for medical systems that are already running out of room. More than 23,000 people with COVID-19 have died in California, and the number is only expected to climb.

Dr. Jim Keany, associate director of Mission Hospital’s emergency department in Southern California’s Orange County, wonders how much more they can handle.

“Are we going to have the resources to take care of our community?” he asked.

The first COVID-19 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 hit 2 million.

On Tuesday, Holy Cross had 147 coronavirus patients across its 377 beds, more than double the record seen at the hospital in the first wave of the pandemic earlier this year.

“If you had told us in April that we’d have 147 patients?” said Elizabeth Chow, Holy Cross’ executive director of critical care and a nurse leader. “Never in my wildest dreams.”

And the nightmare is expected to get worse.

Despite health officials’ pleas that people stay home, millions of Americans are traveling ahead of Christmas and New Year’s, much like they did last month for Thanksgiving.

Hospitals in California and elsewhere already have been pushed to the brink. They have hired extra staff, canceled elective surgeries, and set up outdoor tents to treat patients, all to boost capacity before the cases contracted over Christmas and New Year’s show up in the next few weeks.

Holy Cross and Mission Hospital have sprinkled holiday decorations throughout the hallways: poinsettias perched on counters, scraggly miniature trees in patients’ rooms, caricatures of the Grinch doodled at nurses’ stations.

But the bright colors don’t distract from the constant cacophony: ventilators belching like foghorns, monitors beeping, machines whirring; all trying to keep