California entered the weekend with coronavirus deaths rising to 24, orders for most residents to stay at home to slow the spread and already desperate hospitals bracing for more patients that officials fear will overwhelm the state’s healthcare system.
The total number of confirmed cases of COVID-19, the illness caused by the virus, in California now stands at 1,200, but officials have said that is a gross underestimation due to the lack of tests for the virus. Testing picked up this week but healthcare authorities said they still don’t have anything close to a firm estimate of how many people are infected.
Los Angeles County confirmed 61 new coronavirus cases Friday, including 12 people in Long Beach and two in Pasadena. The new cases bring the county’s total to 292.
The median age for the total of those who have been infected is 47, county Public Health Department Director Dr. Barbara Ferrer said. There are 138 people between the ages of 18 and 65 who have tested positive…
Intensive care beds at the county’s emergency-room hospitals are already at or near capacity, even as those facilities have doubled the number available for COVID-19 patients in recent days, according to newly released data.
Fewer than 200 ICU beds were available Wednesday, with most occupied by patients who don’t have the virus, according to the data, which covers the roughly 70 public and private hospitals in Los Angeles County that receive emergency patients…
Sweeping orders
Gov. Gavin Newsom on Friday deployed the California National Guard to assist food banks statewide that are serving residents facing food shortages.
Newsom said the short-term deployment will initially assist a food bank warehouse in Sacramento County, and will also assess the needs of other counties that have requested assistance with their programs.
The move came a day after he took the extraordinary action of telling most Californians so stay home
Lives changing
Saturday will be a key test of the governor’s order.
On Friday, automobile traffic was “pandemic light.” Hiking trails, meanwhile, were filled with cabin fever sufferers who stayed the requisite six feet apart and smiled a lot more than normal, grateful to be anywhere but home…
Additional deaths
Additional deaths were reported Friday across the state. Contra Costa County announced its first death related to the virus: a person in their 70s who had an underlying medical condition and had recently traveled to Europe. The patient died Thursday in an undisclosed hospital.
Riverside County reported its fourth death. Information about the victim wasn’t immediately available.
Santa Clara County announced two additional deaths from COVID-19 on Friday, bringing its total to eight…
Read the full story in the Los Angeles Times here: https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-03-21/california-coronavirus-deaths-rise-to-24-as-hospitals-brace-for-flood-of-patients
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