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.
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“The risk is spread across everyone,” Ferrer said.
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.
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County health officials have advised doctors to refrain from testing some patients, unless a positive result could change how they would be treated.
The guidance, sent to doctors in a letter on Thursday, was prompted by a crush of patients and shortage of test kits, and could make it difficult to ever know precisely how many people in the county contracted the virus.
The health department “is shifting from a strategy of case containment to slowing disease transmission and averting excess morbidity and mortality,” according to the letter. Doctors should test symptomatic patients only when “a diagnostic result will change clinical management or inform public health response.”
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.
The mandatory order allows residents to continue to visit grocery stores, pharmacies, farmers markets, food banks, convenience stores, takeout and delivery restaurants, banks, gas stations and laundromats. People may also leave their homes to care for a relative or a friend or seek healthcare services.
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Newsom asked Californians to practice social distancing when performing such “necessary activities.”
“We’re going to keep the grocery stores open,” he said. “We’re going to make sure that you’re getting critical medical supplies. You can still take your kids outside, practicing common sense and social distancing. You can still walk your dog.”
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said he “strongly” supported the move by Newsom, as well as a similar directive by New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, and urged residents of the two hard-hit states to heed the new orders.
President Trump also praised Newsom and Cuomo, saying, “I applaud them” for “taking very bold steps” to limit activities in their states.
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.
The city of El Segundo blocked off parking spots in front of local restaurants, where sit-down service is prohibited, and posted cheerful “Gundo to Go” signs. Masks and latex gloves were the garb of the day for those who ventured out.
At Los Angeles International Airport at 10:30 a.m. Friday, there were twice as many workers as there were travelers at the Air Canada counter in Terminal 6. The LAXit lot looked all but closed. The four zones where travelers wait for Uber and Lyft rides had a total of three cars at 11:15 a.m. There were 13 taxis. And the travelers? Forget about it.
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At Griffith Park, dog walkers and exercisers were out in force Friday morning. People did lunges on the grass and pushups on the picnic tables. A sign flashed “Observatory closed until further notice.”
Robert Dolan, a 64-year-old Los Feliz resident, said he’d been cooped up at home for nearly a week. But on Friday he decided to resume his regular speed walking routine.
“I was feeling stuck in the house because of the coronavirus and all that,” he said. “Finally I said today I need to get out of here, because it’s driving me crazy.”
He sat on a stone ledge and watched a robin land on a tree. He listened to the flow of water near his feet.
“It’s better than it usually is,” he said, “because I’ve actually stopped and looked.”
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.
