California ICU’s Are Above Capacity As COVID Infections Increase

According to Gov. Gavin Newsome, California’s health care system is being strained as COVID-19 cases increase. The states ICU’s are at or above capacity, endangering the lives of patients as well as staff. 

And the state could be facing a caseload of nearly 100,000 hospitalizations within a month, according to new reports. This news is terrifying frontline staff. 

Adult ICU’s are operating at 129% of licensed bed capacity in San Joaquin County, where there has been zero percent ICU capacity for days in a row.

Dr. Mark Ghaly, California’s secretary of Health and Human Services, said ICU capacity is a major concern. The state is currently updating its planning guide for how hospitals would ration care if everyone can’t get the treatment they need.

“We believe that 12% of today’s cases will be hospitalized 12 days from now,” Ghaly said. “Then 12% of those hospitalized patients will be admitted to the ICU for critical-care needs. With that in mind, looking at the cases day-over-day, the trajectory that we are on, we are worried that certain regions do exceed their existing capacity and may even go beyond the existing surge capacity they currently have planned.”

There are no doubt deaths will increase and families will be destroyed as relatives are not able to visit those in the ICU. We keep our eyes and ears on this as more details come out daily.