Santa Monica Hospitals 'Overwhelmed,' Locals Warned To Stay Home

SANTA MONICA, CA — As Los Angeles quickly ascended to the epicenter of California's coronavirus surge, officials announced Wednesday that 12 Santa Monica residents died of coronavirus last week.

"Please don't become one of them," city council member Kevin McKeown said in a video to residents Tuesday night. "If you want to live to see the end of this — and it will end — you simply have to stay home now."

Hospitals in and around Santa Monica were on their way to reaching a breaking point, with four nearby hospitals either past or approaching 90 percent bed-space capacity, according to data collected on Healthdata.gov between Dec. 23 and 31, officials tweeted Tuesday evening.

Intensive care unit capacity surpassed 124 percent at Cedars Sinai Medical Center between those dates, city officials said. Providence Saint John's Health Center, Ronald Regan UCLA Medical Center, and Santa Monica — UCLA Medical Center had also broken 90 percent ICU capacity in late December.

The city did not immediately respond to Patch for comment.

"Our hospitals continue to be overwhelmed [with] few remaining ICU beds," city officials tweeted. "We’re saddened by the passing of 12 Santa Monicans last week [and] extend our thoughts to those families."

The city reported 2,948 coronavirus patients and a total death toll of 72 as of Wednesday. In Los Angeles County, 11,071 have died from COVID-19.

As the vaccine rollout began, several California leaders, including Gov. Gavin Newsom and LA County Supervisor Hilda Solis, lamented that vaccinations were being administered at a much slower pace than anticipated. According to Bloomberg's Vaccine Tracker, only 22.5 percent of shots have been administered in California as of Wednesday.

"Vaccines are here, and eventually, more of us will enjoy immunity, but right now, the infection level is out of control, and our hospitals are overwhelmed," McKeown said in a stern video to residents. "Activities that were relatively safe just a month ago now could kill you or a member of your family. Every trip out of your home exposes you to more Covid carriers than ever before. You're safer at home."

Our hospitals continue to be overwhelmed w/few remaining ICU beds. We’re saddened by the passing of 12 Santa Monicans last week & extend our thoughts to those families. Please stay home and protect our hospital system.

Source: https://t.co/JoOUEg60YF from 12/23/20 – 12/31/20. pic.twitter.com/EuztcTejCj
— City of Santa Monica (@santamonicacity) January 6, 2021

This week, public health officials predicted that Los Angeles County's surge was about to get worse. And to safeguard local hospitals from a complete collapse, paramedic teams in the county were told not to transport patients who have little chance of survival.

"The reason for the change is that hospitals across LA County are overwhelmed at this time, and transporting a patient who cannot be resuscitated is not the best use of limited resources," a spokesperson from the county's health department told Patch. "Transporting these patients to the emergency department is futile and further impacts the already overwhelmed hospitals."

It took almost 10 months for Los Angeles County to reach 400,000 cases, but the county garnered some 400,000 more cases in the last month alone, County Supervisor Hilda Solis said Monday.

"That is a human disaster, and one that was avoidable," Solis said on Monday. "But I need to underscore that it could be worse, the situation is already beyond our imagination, but it could become beyond comprehension."