With guidelines revised, what’s next for SJ County?
Cassie Dickman
State health officials lifted regional stay-athome orders across the state last Monday as the numbers of COVID-19 hospitalizations and intensive care unit patients have declined since early January following a postholiday surge. Here’s what that means.
Faced with a dire shortage of hospital beds, state health officials placed 47 of California’s 58 counties under sweeping lockdown orders in December in an urgent attempt to slow the rapid rise of coronavirus cases that threatened to overwhelm hospitals. This forced many businesses since the pandemic began to once again either close or drastically reduce their services.
California has now returned to its four-tiered, color-coded system of county-by-county restrictions for reopening, health officials announced early last week.
The change has allowed businesses such as restaurants to resume outdoor operations in many areas, though local officials could choose to continue stricter rules. The state also lifted a 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. curfew.
Although easing, San Joaquin County remains in the purple, the most restrictive, tier of the COVID-19 pandemic classifications. The color-coded tiers are part of the statewide Blueprint for a Safer Economy and indicate which activities and businesses are open based on local case rates and test positivity.
The purple tier allows for outdoor dining, hair and nail salons to be open, and outdoor church services. Bars that only serve beverages cannot be open.
Lifting restrictions was based in part on the state altering its formula to include overall potential intensive care unit capacity rather than just depending on licensed ICU bed capacity, San Joaquin County health officials explained to the county’s Board of Supervisors at its meeting last Tuesday.
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San Joaquin County’s seven hospitals have a total of 99 licensed ICU beds, but for weeks the medical facilities have been operating well over that capacity due to COVID-19 infections. This happens because hospitals can create more ICU beds when needed.
“We’ve got portable beds, cots. We can fill the hallways in our hospitals if need be. And some of our hospitals are already using their med surge and stepped down telemetry units outside of the ICU for ICU patients,” County Public Health Officer Maggie Park said in December. “The limiting factor is really the staffing for those beds. And that’s why we really need to do our best to keep our hospitals as unimpacted as possible.”
County hospitals reported operating at 139% of licensed ICU capacity on Friday. However, county Emergency Medical Services Agency spokeswoman Marissa Matta said that under the state’s new guidelines, hospitals technically had four unused ICU beds available that day.
“The number (of ICU beds) changes daily based on staffing available,” Matta said.
More: Stockton leads other San Joaquin County cities in number of COVID-19 deaths
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