State now leads the nation with nearly 420,000 cases

Daily record for deaths also broken Wednesday, as 155 die from the virus

California now leads the nation in coronavirus cases, surpassing New York state for the first time Wednesday and sparking fears of impending shortages of hospital beds and protective equipment as the capacity of the state’s health care systems is tested once again.

The state added more than 10,000 infections on Wednesday for a total of nearly 420,000 — the highest caseload of any state in the U.S. Meanwhile, New York — which was the epicenter of the virus in its early months, and has about half as many people as the Golden State — has reported just under 409,000 cases.

California also topped its daily record for deaths reported by county public health departments, with 155 deaths. The previous record was set July 8, when the state tallied 151 deaths.

Amid the “sobering” new numbers, Gov. Gavin Newsom said Wednesday that his office is hurrying to secure enough personal

protective equipment for health care and other “essential” workers in preparation for a potential surge in hospitalizations that could follow the latest infections.

“It’s not surprising now in some respects as we’ve begun to reopen key sectors of our economy, we continue to mix and come in close contact with others that may have contracted the disease, that the numbers would go up,” Newsom said.

Already this week, the number of COVID-19 patients in California exceeded 7,000 for the first time since the crisis began, occupying nearly 10% of the state’s hospital beds — to date the largest percentage of medical resources used at one time. Statewide, the number of COVID-positive hospital patients has nearly doubled in just the last month, from 3,574 on June 20 to 7,091; the Bay Area has likewise seen a 219% increase in hospitalizations over that period.

Hospital systems across California are bracing for the “worst-case scenario” of having to treat about 25,000 COVID-19 patients at once — a surge of about four times the number of patients filling beds now, said Carmela Coyle, president and CEO of the California Hospital Association. And while availability of personal protective equipment has improved since March and April, the supply chain remains “spotty.”

“Capacity is made up of not just space and beds,” Coyle said. “It’s all about staff and personal protective equipment and testing. And unfortunately all three of those things are in short supply.”

Newsom aimed to quell those fears Wednesday, announcing plans for a new contract with Chinese manufacturer BYD that would procure another 120 million N95 masks and 300 million lower-grade masks. The deal comes after BYD — “Build Your Dreams” — finally received federal safety certification in early June to distribute masks in the U.S.

Since the start of the pandemic, hospitals and health care facilities have burned through about 46 million masks each month, Newsom said. The state’s stockpile now includes about 86 million N95 masks and 111 million surgical and procedural masks.

And while the governor acknowledged complaints that health care workers are still not adequately supplied with protective equipment, he shifted the blame toward local private health systems, which he said have failed to consistently distribute PPE to members.

“It’s not for a lack of inventory, it’s for a lack of accountability at the local level at the the hospital and system level to get those masks out, and that’s what we’re aggressively trying to do,” Newsom said.

Within the Bay Area’s Kaiser Permanente facilities, for instance, nurses are still being told to ration PPE, said Michelle Gutierrez Vo, a Kaiser nurse in Fremont and member of the California Nurses Association board. In most patient settings, workers use isolation masks, which provide less protection than surgical masks.

Late Tuesday, health care workers gathered in Oakland to remember a veteran nurse, 59-year-old Janine Paiste-Ponder of Sutter Alta Bates Summit Medical Center, who died last week from COVID-19. Her death left many terrified, Gutierrez Vo said.

“We definitely want to know where the stockpile is going, because it’s not getting to the front lines,” Gutierrez Vo said. “It’s pure madness.”