Due to surging infection and hospitalization trends, California will extend its stay-at-home order for the Southern California and San Joaquin Valley regions, state Health and Human Services Secretary Dr. Mark Ghaly issued in a statement on Tuesday.
The regional stay-at-home order was first instituted by Governor Gavin Newsom on Dec. 3 and was set to expire on Monday. Under the order, the country's most populous state was split into five regions so that restrictions could match the regions' level of outbreak and hospital capacity. The stay-at-home order requires most businesses--excluding those defined as essential and retail--to close to the public and bans private gathering of any size.
The two southern and central regions of the stay that will continue these restrictions have what is considered no capacity for intensive care patients, meaning they have reached a level of patients that it testing the region's supply of healthcare workers, ventilators, and other medical supplies.
"We have not heard yet that any hospital is at the point where they need to make a decision between two patients who both need a ventilator, and they only have one ventilator, but some overwhelmed hospitals don't have space to unload ambulances or get oxygen to patients who can't breathe," Ghaly said, quoted by the Associated Press.
"We certainly know that Southern California hospitals are in crisis, and some have begun to implement parts of crisis care."
The state's public health system has contacted hospitals to prepare them for the possibility of using the crisis care guidelines established for the pandemic. These guidelines outline how to give care to those that are most likely to survive treatment when oxygen, ventilators, staff and other medical supplies need to be rationed.
The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, which is within the southern region, confirmed on Tuesday that the county has 7,181 coronavirus patients currently hospitalized, with 20% in the intensive care unit. That amount of patients is nearly a 1,000% increase from just two months ago.
"Our healthcare workers are overwhelmed with COVID-19 patients and this current path of surging COVID-19 hospitalizations is not sustainable," said Dr. Barbara Ferrer, director of the county's health department, in a statement. Ferrer called on all resident to stay home for the New Year's holiday in order to help the community reverse this surging trend.