Coronavirus Update For Riverside County And Southern California

RIVERSIDE COUNTY, CA — The number of coronavirus infections reported in Riverside County surpassed 200,000 Tuesday, while the number of hospitalizations climbed.

After a record-breaking 17,683 new coronavirus cases were reported Monday, Tuesday saw an additional 1,820 new infections countywide, bringing the total to 200,056 reported cases since the pandemic began, according to Riverside University Health System-Public Health.

Hospitalizations increased to 1,615 Tuesday, an increase of 72 patients since Monday. Of the total, 342 patients are in intensive care units, an increase of 12 over the previous day, the RUHS data showed.

After 111 COVID-19 deaths were reported Monday, two were reported Tuesday, bringing the total to 2,098.

Riverside County hospitals are urging residents to take precautions to limit virus exposure to reduce the chances of hospital visits in an effort to reduce demands on scarce ICU space and overburdened medical staff.

Los Angeles County Hospitalizations

After some Los Angeles County hospitals reported "internal disaster" status over the long holiday weekend, the situation remains critical in the nearby county. Hospitalization numbers continued soaring in the county Tuesday, with the number of COVID patients surpassing the 8,000 mark and medical centers contending with limited staffing and difficulties discharging less-critically ill patients to free up beds.

According to numbers released by the state Tuesday, Los Angeles County had a pandemic-high 8,023 COVID patients in hospitals, including 1,642 in intensive-care units. The county's 70 "911-receiving" hospitals with emergency rooms have a total licensed capacity of about 2,500 ICU beds, although in recent weeks they have implemented surge plans and staffed a daily average of about 3,000 ICU beds.

As of Tuesday morning, however, there were no longer any local hospitals on "internal disaster" status, which occurred at some facilities over the weekend, effectively shutting them off to all levels of ambulance traffic. But the situation remained critical at hospitals as they struggled to handle the unending stream of new patients.

"Countywide, for all hospitals, the issues are really the same," Dr. Christina Ghaly, the Los Angeles County health services director, told the Board of Supervisors. "All hospitals are working through staffing issues, many are working through infrastructure and oxygen-supply issues, which are complicated and numerous."

Ghaly said Monday that almost all hospitals over the weekend diverted advanced life-support ambulances due to overcrowding in the emergency department.

She told the Board of Supervisors Tuesday that in addition to the continuous stream of new patients, hospitals are coping with various other problems, including continuing issues with oxygen supplies and delivery systems. Hospitals also have continued to experience backlogs of ambulances in emergency bays, some waiting hours to off-load patients due to lack of space.

Ghaly said hospitals are also dealing with increased absences of staff who are getting sick or exposed to COVID themselves.

"Just as transmission increases within the community, health care workers get sick too," she said.

But the problem extends beyond just medical teams.

"We are still facing critical call-outs from staff that aren't eligible for the vaccine right now, and that includes supply chain (personnel), power plant, people fixing the oxygen system and other areas," she said.

Also contributing to overcrowding conditions are difficulties discharging patients who no longer require hospital-level care. Ghaly said the four county-operated hospitals have struggled to move such patients to lower-level care facilities, with some skilled nursing facilities refusing to accept transfers of select COVID patients. The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health issued a directive to the facilities on Friday, ordering them to stop blocking such transfers, resulting in the weekend transfer of about 200 patients to nursing homes.

"Sometimes the patients themselves don't want to be moved to a lower level of care, and state law prohibits us moving a patient unless the patient agrees to the placement," Ghaly said. "Skilled nursing facilities as well as other lower level of care areas are facing staffing shortages, and that's limiting the number of patients they can take as well."

Ghaly also said dialysis centers are exacerbating the problem, by sending patients to emergency departments for dialysis or COVID testing "rather than doing it on site." Dialysis patients in hospitals also can't always be immediately discharged due to lack of outpatient space.

Staffing continues to be the biggest challenge at hospitals. Ghaly said the county has made requests to the state for staffing assistance. Thus far, the state has provided 36 contract nurses, and two 20-person U.S. Department of Defense teams are expected to arrive in the next two days at a pair of county-run hospitals — Harbor-UCLA Medical Center and County-USC Medical Center. Five other private hospitals in the county are also expected to receive federal health teams, Ghaly said.

Ghaly warned Monday that despite the start of a new year, the virus remains deadly, and, "The worst is almost certainly still ahead" in terms of virus cases, hospitalizations and deaths.

Orange, San Bernardino and San Diego Counties: Hospitalizations, Variant

Orange County continued its record-setting pace for COVID-19 hospitalizations Tuesday. The number of patients hospitalized for coronavirus in the county rose from 2,178 Monday to 2,236, including an increase in intensive care patients from 500 to 504, both records, according to Orange County data.

In San Bernardino County, more than half of all the county's licensed hospital beds are being used by COVID-19 patients. Nearly 60 percent of the county's ICU beds are occupied by COVID-19 patients, according to the San Bernardino County data.

In San Diego County, public health officials Tuesday reported 24 new confirmed and four probable cases of the more contagious strain of SARS-CoV2 that was first identified in the U.K. The new cases bring the county's confirmed cases of the variant to 28.

The variant, known as B.1.1.7, was first found in the U.S. last Tuesday in Colorado. The first San Diego case was confirmed in a man in his 30s with no history of travel, who first became symptomatic Dec. 27 and tested positive Dec. 29. He was hospitalized and contact tracing was initiated.

The 24 newly confirmed patients are believed to have no travel history and come from 19 different households, but the investigation and contact tracing are ongoing, the San Diego County Health and Human Services Agency reported.

New cases have been identified in San Diego, Chula Vista, La Mesa and Lakeside. While the four youngest cases are in children under 10 and the oldest is over 70, the average age of the variant cases to date is 36 — the same as the overall average for all confirmed cases in the county to date.

"The fact that these cases have been identified in multiple parts of the region shows that this strain of the virus could be rapidly spreading," said Dr. Wilma Wooten, San Diego County's public health officer. "People should be extra cautious to prevent getting and spreading COVID-19, especially this variant, which research has shown is more contagious."

—City News Service contributed to this report.