Newsom says stay home order likely extended

As coronavirus cases, hospitalizations and deaths continue to surge in California, the state is considering extending stayhome orders affecting most residents of the Golden State.

“It’s very likely we’ll need to extend that stay at home order,” Gov. Gavin Newsom said during a news conference Monday.

The stay-home orders were set to begin expiring at the end of December for some regions, but the state plans to evaluate ICU capacity and other factors in the coming days that will likely mean more time at home.

Hospitalizations in California have increased 63% in the last two weeks, with more than 17,000 coronavirus patients now in the hospital. ICU numbers have also increased 51%, with more than 3,640 patients needing critical care. And the death rate has climbed, to a seven-day average of 233 deaths a day. The testing pos

itivity rate has also crept up from less than 9% two weeks ago to 12%.

The seven- day average for cases reached 37,892 over the weekend, and while that’s slightly below the previous average, Newsom said it’s too early to tell whether the latest figures signal good news.

Regardless, hospitalization numbers are expected to explode in the coming weeks. Some projections forecast more than 90,000 hospitalizations in the coming weeks, with families planning to gather over the Christmas holiday despite pleas from public health officials to stay home. That could overwhelm hospitals and ICUs already straining to care for existing patients.

“We are anticipating a substantial increase in the hospital surge,” Newsom said.

Statewide, the state has just 2.5% ICU capacity, in

cluding 0% in Southern California and the San Joaquin County. In the Bay Area, ICU capacity stands at 13.7%, just below Greater Sacramento’s 16.2%. The only area in the state not under a stay-home order remains Northern California, where ICU capacity sits at 28.7%.

“We are worried that certain regions do exceed their existing capacity and even may go beyond the existing surge capacity they currently have planned,” warned Health and Human Services Secretary Mark Ghaly, noting that about 12% of today’s cases will require hospitalization, and 12% of those will likely require ICU admission

When a region has 0% ICU capacity, it doesn’t necessarily mean it doesn’t have any ICU space available, but rather that hospitals must activate surge beds and staff they don’t ordinarily use. That could mean bringing on cardiologists to help provide ICU care, for instance.

Already, the state has opened four “alternative care” sites, including at the Sleep Train Arena in Sacramento. The sites are currently caring for 62 patients, but that number is likely to rise. One of the sites is in hard-hit Imperial County, where Newsom has requested an extension of federal help through January.

“It looks very, very favorable,” he said.

In the past, places like Imperial County transferred patients elsewhere. But as COVID-19 surges across the state, that becomes less of a possibility.

Yet, the largest challenge at many hospitals is not bed space or personal protective equipment like masks and gloves, but staffing, with the traveling nurses that have typically offered some relief in demand across the country.

The state has already dispatched 607 staff to help at 75 facilities across 24 counties, Newsom said, and is requesting more federal help, including 10 teams of

20 Department of Defense staffers.

The state is also considering implementing a new quarantine protocol for visitors from the United Kingdom, where a new strain of the coronavirus is raising alarm.

The new strain has not been found in California yet, but “it’s a little bit more sticky than the covid virus we’ve been seeing to date,” Ghaly said. “It means that an exposure to somebody with the new strain may mean you’re more likely to get infected…that is why we’re worried.”

There is a bright spot amid all the dire coronavirus data, however: More than 70,000 people in the state have.received the first dose of Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine and hundreds of thousands more frontline workers are expected to be inoculated this week.

Some 560,625 doses of the Pfizer vaccine should arrive this week, Newsom said, along with more than 670,000 doses of the newly approved Moderna vaccine.

“This is an extraordinary accomplishment,” Newsom said.

The governor acknowledged the Pfizer shipments are about 40% below what the state had anticipated because of an error at the federal level, but Newsom complimented the Trump administration and said they “deserve credit” for working to distribute the vaccine.

“We are so often too quick to be judgmental,” he said.