REGION HEADS INTO LOCKDOWN

Coronavirus spread prompts stricter measures to keep hospital capacity from reaching its limit

At 11:59 p.m. today, San Diego County will plunge into a new round of restrictions intended to keep Southern California’s hospitals from being overwhelmed by a surging pandemic.

The restrictions, which will last at least three weeks, mean that zoos, nail salons and barber shops will close; shopping centers will take in fewer customers at a time; restaurants are only open for takeout, pick-up or delivery.

The timing of the order also means that the state is telling most Californians not to travel for Christmas. “There’s no way around it — this stinks,” said county Supervisor Greg Cox in a Saturday press briefing announcing the restrictions. “We know that.”

County officials also reported eight new coronavirus deaths and 2,287 positive tests, yet another single-day COVID-19 case record. In addition, the city of San Diego reported that 55 residents and staff at the San Diego Convention Center’s emergency homeless shelter had recently tested positive for the coronavirus — more than double the total reported to date.

But the stay-at-home order wasn’t prompted by an uptick in cases. The trigger was the percentand age of available intensive care unit beds in the state’s designated Southern California region, which dipped to 12.5 percent Saturday, below the 15 percent cutoff.

In all, some 33 million Californians will be subject to the new restrictions, representing 84 percent of the state’s population.

That includes the San Joaquin Valley, which also reached the threshold mandated by the state,

and five Bay Area counties, which have voluntarily decided to implement the stayhome-order.

The prospect of more shutdowns spurred a lastminute flurry of activity for some San Diegans and confused others.

Fabian Sanchez, owner of Eclips Barber & Beauty Salon in Clairemont, spent much of Saturday on the phone with clients looking to make an appointment for a last-minute trim.

“A lot of people calling, asking what we (are) going to do,” Sanchez said. “I’m expecting a busy, late night.”

Sanchez didn’t plan to close shop until 6:30 p.m., if not later, hoping to squeeze in a few more customers. That included one of his most loyal patrons — his cousin, Antonio Sanchez, who was eager to get a haircut while he still could.

In other cases, San Diegans weren’t even aware that a stay-at-home order was imminent.

“Nobody knows what’s going on, ever,” said Sydney Rodriguez, a server at Chicago Fire Grill in University City. “It’s kind of a combination of people assuming that we’re already closed and people that have no idea.”

Rodriguez struck a mostly upbeat tone, however, saying that the restaurant’s loyal customers would likely continue ordering takeout to satisfy their cravings for gyros, burgers and Italian beef.

Not everyone was so sanguine.

“This ‘regional’ approach from the State of California is absurd,” wrote county Supervisor Jim Desmond in a statement. “Let’s be responsible — continue to follow all the safety protocols, like the wearing masks and social distancing. San Diegans are doing that, and our numbers reflect a region that should not be shut down.”

Part of Desmond’s objection was how the state defined the Southern California region, which includes 11 counties that cut a horseshoe-shaped path along the southern end of the Golden State, from San Luis Obispo to San Diego to Mono.

San Diego County’s available ICU capacity stood at 23 percent Saturday. The state’s rationale behind grouping counties together is that, when a hospital is overwhelmed, it often sends patients to a nearby region. That’s what happened earlier in the year, when El Centro Regional Medical Center in Imperial County flew COVID-19 patients out to San Diego. But that doesn’t work when hospitals in neighboring regions are strained, too. And with the pandemic surging across the state, there’s a serious risk the health care system will be flooded by an influx of patients that it can’t handle.

California has broken the record for COVID-19 hospitalizations for seven consecutive days, with 9,430 on Friday — more than quadruple the number from Oct. 24, when there were 2,254.

The state’s hospitals have never had so many severely ill COVID-19 patients; there are 2,182 in the ICUS, the third consecutive day the record has been broken. During the COVID-19 surge in the summer, there were never more than 2,058 patients in the ICUS.

“I think we’re headed into a really dark place this winter,” said Dr. Davey Smith, an infectious disease expert at UC San Diego. “Having these sorts of stricter measures is prudent at the moment, because we were only headed up and up and up in terms of caseloads, and free (hospital) beds were only going down.”

The only hospital in San Benito County is “completely full,” Dr. David Ghilarducci, the county’s public health officer, said in a statement. “This is an alarming situation that could get much worse.”

Holiday travel may only worsen that trend. State and local public health officials have pleaded with the public to remain at home this holiday season. But during Thanksgiving week, an average of 30,000 people flew into and out of San Diego International Airport a day. Some mistakenly believed that a negative coronavirus test result meant they could travel safely. Airport traffic has dropped since then, dipping to 18,000 travelers on Thursday, according to the San Diego County Regional Airport Authority. It’s unclear what impact the stay-at-home order will have on that figure going forward.

San Diego is locked into the current restrictions for at least three weeks. At that time, the state will project what the region’s ICU capacity will be in another four weeks. If the projected capacity is 15 percent or more, the counties in that region return to whatever reopening tier they fall into based on their COVID-19 case rate and percentage of tests that come back positive.

But if the projected capacity is below 15 percent, the order stands, and the state will issue its next assessment the following week.

“There’s no avoiding the situation we face in front of us. It is going to be difficult. It’s going to be tough,” said county Supervisor Nathan Fletcher during the Saturday briefing, noting that the first COVID-19 vaccine doses will soon be on the way. “We can do this. We’ve done it before. We just have to do it one more time.”