COVID-19 Hospitalization Decreases Slightly in LA County

Los Angeles County on Sunday reported 12,488 new cases of COVID-19 and 91 additional deaths, but also a slight decrease in the number of coronavirus patients in county hospitals.

A total of 7,544 COVID-19 patients were hospitalized with the virus, with 21% in intensive care, according to the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health. That’s a decrease from the 7,627 patients reported on Saturday.

The decrease in hospitalizations moves hospitals across the region closer to regaining 15 percent of their ICU capacity which is required for some Pasadena businesses to reopen. 

The county’s totals for the entire pandemic are now 818,639 cases and 10,773 fatalities.

The caseload has doubled in the past month.

Conditions remain dire at hospitals in the county, with ambulances waiting up to eight hours to off-load patients, leading to a shortage of paramedic crews on the streets and longer 911 response times.

“Our deepest condolences go out to the many families mourning a loved one who passed away from COVID-19 and you remain in our thoughts as we begin this new year,” Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer said Saturday.

“The strategy for stopping the surge is fairly straightforward. When people stay away from other people, the virus cannot spread as it is doing now. The more we stay home and the more we avoid in-person activities with other people we don’t live with, the more we reduce the spread of the virus.

“While health officer orders create the framework for protecting each other, it is our actions that stop people from being hospitalized and dying,” Ferrer said. “When we follow the public health safety directives with intention, we avoid getting and transmitting COVID-19; this is how we stop the surge.”

Amid the unfolding disaster, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers sent experts to help with the oxygen delivery systems at six of the county’s older hospitals, state officials announced Friday.

“The current surge of patients … it’s kind of a hidden disaster,” said Cathy Chidester, director of the county Emergency Medical Services agency, earlier this week. “It’s not a fire. It’s not an earthquake. It’s not a train wreck that’s right in the public view and they can see what is happening and they can avoid that area. It’s all happening behind the doors of households and hospitals. So nobody is really, the general public, is not really seeing what is going on.”

Chidester said there are reports of hospitals being so overwhelmed that ambulances are waiting seven or eight hours in emergency bays, forcing patients to be treated in the ambulance. But more importantly, the delay is keeping the ambulances out of service, leaving them unable to respond to additional emergency medical calls, she said.

“We’re running out of ambulances, and our response to 911 calls is getting longer and longer,”’ Chidester said.

In the Antelope Valley, Chidester said, the county is using ambulances and ambulance companies “that are not traditionally 911-response ambulances” just to keep up with the demand.