Gavin Newtham, Governor of California, will speak at a press conference in Sacramento earlier this year.
(AP communication)
The number of coronavirus cases has increased rapidly. A full hospital. Reopening of school has been postponed. The fight over wearing a mask due to the intensification of the public.
July brought The tough month of COVID-19 headlines in California, The former situation was viewed as a model of prevention to withstand a new surge of cases when the economy reopened rapidly.
But will the end of July end with worse news or temporary signs that efforts to delay the infection by closing some companies and institutions may pay off?
Health officials are anxious for an increase in the latter, particularly in pointing out that other hotspot states may have begun to plateau.
“We are just beginning to flatten the curve,” said Robert Kim Farley, a medical epidemiology and infectious disease expert at the California State University Institute of Health (UCLA) School of Public Health. “I would expect to start seeing cases begin to decline in the coming weeks, depending on public cooperation.”
Kim Farley said on Sunday that he would not need to close more businesses based on the information currently available, and perhaps in a couple of weeks, some parts of California could reopen some businesses. There may be times when it may become slow and step by step.
Kim Farley said the state’s hospital system has not been widely overwhelmed by this recent surge. If the local hotspot had an overwhelming hospital system, the problem was not a physical bed, but a lack of medical staff. Some said it was alleviated by transferring patients to other counties in the neighborhood and by sending federal doctors and nurses to hospitals in Central Valley and Southern California.
Other hotspot states are beginning to show signs of improvement. The rate of positive coronavirus test results is beginning to decline in Arizona and Texas, but “it’s a bit more in mixed Florida and California bags,” said Scott, a former director of the Food and Drug Administration. Dr. Gottlieb says. , Said on CBS”Face the nation” on Sunday.
“We’ll have to wait another week to see how these states will drop, but there are clear signs that the epidemic is slowing,” Gottlieb said. “. But he cautioned that the pandemic appears hot in the South, Midwest, and other states of the District of Columbia.
In Arizona, the 7-day positive rate for coronavirus testing was 22%, down from 28% in mid-July, COVID tracking project.. The Los Angeles Times analysis found that the seven-day positive rate in California remained between 7% and 8% since July 5th. At least as of June, this rate is not on a sustained uptrend. Higher positive rates indicate worsening disease spread.
In LA County, the positive rate has been stable at about 8.5% since July 1st, and was about 4% in late May. “The fact that we are flat is encouraging,” said Barbara Ferrer, director of public health in Los Angeles County. “We want to see it fall again.”
There are still numbers that interest us throughout the state. The effective coronavirus transmission rate throughout California varies between 1.1 and 1.3. That is, each person infected in the state will infect 1.1 to 1.3 people on average. Dr. Mark Gurley, California Secretary of Health and Human Services.
According to the model posted, the transmission rates in Northern and Central California are now worse than in most of Southern California. State public health officials. The spread of COVID-19 is probably stable in LA, San Diego, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino and Imperial counties, but probably increased in Ventura county, San Francisco Bay Area and Central Valley.
Dr. George Rutherford, an epidemiologist and infectious disease expert at the University of California at San Francisco, said Friday that data show that the prevalence in San Francisco, Santa Clara, Contra Costa, and San Mateo counties was about 1.3 or 1.4. We announced at city hall. “This is far, far less satisfying,” Rutherford said.
There are also concerns about the deficiency of the main antiviral drug (lemdesibir) that has been used to reduce recovery time. “In hospitals and many other countries, there is a shortage of #remdesivir in the Bay Area,” said Dr. Peter Ching Hong, a medical professor and infectious disease specialist at the University of California, San Francisco. Tweeted..
Last week, California recorded more than 150 deaths each day on Wednesday and Thursday—the worst daily death toll since the beginning of the pandemic. Death tends to be an indicator of delayed outbreaks, and experts say that death is likely when people leave home in June to return to a previous pre-COVID activity, such as a party, or when they work. He says he believes it is related to the infection that took place where new health and safety precautions could not be taken.
Despite the surge, California had far fewer than 8,400 deaths from COVID-19 and more than 32,000 deaths from New York, making it the worst hotspot in the United States. But officials warned that the situation here could soon get worse.
San Francisco warned that overwhelming numbers of hospitals, like those seen in spring, are still plausible, with only what the authorities called the Red Zone last week in view of the rapid increase in hospitalization.
“There’s a good chance that New York-like situations will occur in late summer or early fall. That’s why everyone has to play their part in flattening the curve,” San Francisco Public Health. The director, Dr. Grant Colfax, said.
Dr. Christina Gurley, Director of Health Services in LA County, said the number of new COVID-19 patients requiring hospitalization in LA County is increasing, leveling off, and even starting to decline. I am.
It’s flattened significantly lower than in April, but the data still suggest improvements. The number of ICU beds available in LA County is also stable, with 130 to 160 beds per day.
“We’re hoping this week is about to begin, and we are beginning to see corrective action to slow the spread of COVID-19,” said Dr. Muntu Davis, a health officer in LA County.
It can take 3-4 weeks for a person infected to become infected enough to be hospitalized after being exposed to the virus, and 4-5 weeks for some of the most vulnerable patients to die of the disease.
Governor Gavin Newtham last week said state officials Prepare a hospital for the coming situation.
Newsom at a press conference in a warehouse in Sacramento with personal protective equipment on Wednesday Chinese company BYD While buying more than 300 million surgical masks and 120 million additional N95 face masks to protect healthcare workers and others, bids from companies that can provide protective equipment in the coming months Seeking The so-called bridge contract is worth $315 million.
The governor said this step is necessary because California ships 46 million masks each month and has an inventory of 111 million N95 masks.
“In California, we were able to bend the curve months ago,” Newsom said. “It saved me the time to buy and procure the kind of equipment I see and put together our plans.”
California Hospital Assn. It calls on the Newsom administration for more support from the federal government in providing staff and to reconsider the existing nurse-to-patient ratio if conditions worsen.
Newsom said the state has a strategy that “alternative medicine sites need to be developed outside the hospital system to quarantine and quarantine individuals in order to address the potential surge in hospital use.” Told.
The governor acknowledged that complaints from health workers who did not have adequate medical masks and other protective equipment continued despite the increase in births from the state.
One of the defenders of the nurse recently told him that many get only a few masks a week, but medical standards require more.
“It’s unacceptable,” Newtham said. “We are still listening and need to address the issue.”
Lin and Dolan from San Francisco and McGreevy from Sacramento.