Calif. is 2nd state to top 1 million cases
LOS ANGELES — A month ago, Antonio Gomez III was a healthy 46year- old struggling like so many others to balance work and parenting during the coronavirus pandemic.
This week, he’s struggling to breathe after a three-week bout with the deadly virus.
Gomez let down his guard to see his parents and contracted one of the more than 1 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 in California. For months, the virus has hammered the economy, disproportionately affected the poor and upended daily life — and now the state and the rest of the country are trying to curb another surge of infections.
California on Thursday became the second state — behind Texas — to eclipse a million known cases, while the U.S. has surpassed 10 million infections, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. The nation’s most populous state — with 40 million residents — ranks 39th nationwide in the number of cases per 100,000 residents.
The timeline of COVID-19 in America often comes back to California. It had some of the earliest known cases among travelers from China, where the outbreak began. The Feb. 6 death of a San Jose woman is the first known coronavirus fatality in the U.S. That same month, California recorded the first U.S. case not related to travel and the first infection spread within the community.
On March 19, Gov. Gavin Newsom issued the nation’s first statewide stayat-home order, shuttering businesses and schools to try to prevent hospital overcrowding.
The spread slowed, but California faced the same challenges as other states: providing enough protective gear for health workers, doing enough testing and providing timely results, tracking infections and those potentially exposed.
As the state tried to balance public health and the economy, cases rose as it relaxed business restrictions. Eleven counties this week had to reimpose limits.
The virus has struck poor Californians and Latinos especially hard. Latinos make up 39 percent of the population but account for more than 60 percent of infections.
In working- class neighborhoods near downtown Los Angeles, one in five people tested positive at community clinics during the pandemic’s early days, said Jim Mangia, president and chief executive of St. John’s Well Child and Family Center.
Many caught the virus in essential low-wage jobs or on public transit and brought it back to crowded homes.
“The tragedy of it all is that patients are getting infected at their work, they come to us and get tested, and they’re not being allowed to come back to work until they have a negative test,” Mangia said. “So, we have patients who have lost their jobs, lost their homes.”
Maria Elena Torres faces that prospect. In late October, the 52-year- old housecleaner from Long Beach started feeling lethargic. Then, her head ached. When nausea kicked in, she called the clinic. By the time she was diagnosed a fewdays later, she was vomiting so severely she had to pray for strength to make it back to her bedroom.
Torres doesn’t know how she got infected. Three weeks later, she still has bouts of nausea and chills, which she nurses with oregano tea. She can’t work and risks falling behind on $1,200 in monthly bills. The office that collects her rent told her she can pay 25 percent now and the rest in 2021.
“I said, ‘ That’s not help,’ ” Torres said. “‘If the virus doesn’t kill me, you all are going to kill me with a heart attack.’ ”