The United States set yet another new record on Dec. 16 with over 247,000 new official cases and over 3,600 deaths. The COVID Tracking Project reports more than 113,000 COVID hospitalizations. The increased travel during Thanksgiving and ‘COVID weariness’ is being blamed, and there is great trepidation if such behavior continues during the Christmas holidays. Various governors in the Northeast and Midwest have issued a video, stating: “If you are planning to travel or gather with other households for the holidays – we urge you to reconsider. Just one infection can cause an outbreak in your community, which could overwhelm our hospitals and put you and your loved ones at risk.”
The stress on hospitals is already showing up in southern California, Arizona, New Mexico and El Paso, Texas, and many other states. The Los Angeles Times reports that ICU capacity in Southern California went from 97.3% to 98.3% between Dec. 14 and 15. The stress on the ICUs has caused: “Canceling scheduled surgeries; keeping critically ill patients in emergency rooms; sending ICU patients into stepdown units earlier; training nurses from elsewhere in hospitals to help with intensive care; and increasing the numbers of patients an ICU nurse can treat.” Cathy Chidester, the director of the Los Angeles County Emergency Medical Services reports that “emergency rooms are so crowded that some ambulances have been forced to wait as long as six hours to offload patients.” Field hospitals for non-ICU patients are being opened, so far, in Costa Mesa, Porterville, Sacramento and Imperial. However, worse than the physical capacity is the lack of enough staffing. Instead of two or three patients for each ICU nurse, they are now caring for as much as seven patients apiece — a situation which can only increase the chances for mistakes.
