ICU capacity in NorCal up to 28.2%
Intensive care unit capacity is currently lower in Humboldt County than much of the rest of the Northern California region, which actually saw its overall capacity go up over the weekend.
As of noon Monday, Humboldt County had 15% of its ICU capacity still available, while the Northern California region as a whole — which includes Del Norte, Glenn, Humboldt, Lake, Lassen, Mendocino, Modoc, Shasta, Siskiyou, Tehama and Trinity counties — has 28.2% of its ICU beds still available, according to state Department of Public Health data. ICU capacity for the region was at 24.1% Saturday and 20.9% Friday.
In a Friday media availability video, Deputy County Health Officer Dr. Josh Ennis said the way ICU capacity has been defined has changed since the pandemic and now an “available bed means they’re capable of staffing it even though they don’t have a nurse standing by to accept a patient.”
“So the number is much more steady more recently,” Ennis said. “I can tell you that within our county, the state is looking at a number that may not accurately reflect our true health care capacity to care for the sick.”
Ennis said more information on that front will be provided in the coming days.
Mad River Community Hospital spokesperson Pam Floyd said the hospital developed a COVID-19 emergency plan in March at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, so the hospital is ready for an increase in patients.
“We have the ability here to increase our ICU capacity,” Floyd said. ” … Right now, we’re staffed for four in our ICU. That can move to six and we could have an additional six ICU beds in another area of the hospital.”
St. Joseph Health, which includes St. Joseph Hospital in Eureka and Redwood Memorial Hospital in Fortuna, expanded part of the Eureka hospital to add a respiratory care unit that can handle up to 32 COVID-19 patients, said St. Joseph spokesperson Christian Hill, and the hospital has 18 ICU beds available for those needing more intensive care.
As of Sunday, there were at least seven people hospitalized with COVID-19 in Humboldt County, according to state data. On Monday, the county confirmed 88 more cases of COVID-19 in Humboldt County, bringing the total cases in the county to 1,102.
The coastal side of the Northern California region doesn’t have many ICU beds to begin with so it wouldn’t be difficult to drop below 15% capacity, Floyd said. The state is requiring any region that falls below 15% ICU capacity to implement a three-week stayat-home order, shuttering some businesses and limiting operations at others, within 24 hours.
Because the Northern California region’s hospital systems are interconnected, soon- to- be- appointed County Health Officer Dr. Ian Hoffman said “our ability to staff these beds can be greatly impacted by what’s going on around us, too.”
“Counties around us with higher rates of hospitalizations, higher rates of COVID, higher rates of ICU will take away from our ability to staff these beds,” Hoffman said.
Resources and health care employees can become scarce as a result because ICU patients need a lot of care and attention, Hoffman and Ennis said. State Health and Human Services Secretary Dr. Mark Ghaly previously said about 12% of reported cases will result in hospitalizations and between 10% to 30% of those will end up in the ICU.
Since there’s a nationwide COVID-19 surge underway, Ennis said “nurses that maybe would normally be here on a rotating basis may not be available here,” making the county more vulnerable to a nursing shortage were a surge to occur.
“The COVID patients who have yet to go to ICU, who may be on oxygen, still require a significant level of care,” Ennis said. “They may need assistance turning over for proning — you’ve probably heard about those position movements that can help open up the lungs.”
However, Hill said there’s a state entity that can be engaged with to provide additional health care workers if needed, but the county’s “not there yet.”
Even if ICU capacity were impacted, the state’s death rate has remained low because more data is available on which treatments work and which don’t, Floyd said.
Ennis said patients who are appropriate candidates for the treatments and consent to them typically receive antiviral medication remdesivir, steroids and convalescent plasma, or plasma with COVID-19 antibodies processed from the blood of people who recovered from the illness.
“So we’re better equipped now than we were six months ago,” Floyd said. “We have a better understanding of the disease itself.”
Hill added that the public can help alleviate pressure on the health care system by “wearing masks and avoiding gatherings over the next several months.”
“We need to double down on that approach while we get safe and effective vaccines to the most vulnerable,” Hill said, “and then make it available for the community at large.”