This is undoubtedly the feared situation in all hospitals in these times of covid.
Overwhelmed by contaminations that have been breaking records for several weeks, the Los Angeles emergency services have started to ration oxygen and beds, now asking paramedics to no longer transport certain patients in cardiac arrest to hospitals with the chances of almost zero survival.
"With immediate effect, due to the severe impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on emergency departments and hospitals, adult patients in cardiac arrest should no longer be transported" to a hospital if resuscitation procedures ( cardiac massage, defibrillator, etc.) did not restore the pulse on the spot, asks the Los Angeles County Medical Emergency Agency in a directive issued Monday to hospitals, paramedics and firefighters in the area.
"Difficult decisions"
Another directive calls for rationing the oxygen administered to patients, with some exceptions.
"The demand for oxygen is such that some hospitals are struggling to maintain sufficient pressure" in their system "to pump oxygen into the lungs of Covid-19 patients," said Dr Christina Ghaly, director of services health centers in Los Angeles County, the most populous in the United States with some 10 million inhabitants.
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“Many hospitals have reached a critical level and have to make difficult decisions about patient care,” she explained.
Dr Ghaly warned that the current explosion in cases is just a consequence of the Thanksgiving holidays and family gatherings in late November, but does not yet reflect the Christmas and New Year's contaminations.
"We will probably experience the worst situation since the start of the pandemic in January, and it's hard to imagine," added the county's public health director, Barbara Ferrer.
One death every eight minutes
According to her, the total number of Covid-19 cases in the county has doubled in the space of a month, topping 800,000. Currently one in five people tested are positive, five times more than on November 1.
On average, the county has recorded 184 deaths from Covid-19 every day over the past week, or one death every eight minutes, according to calculations by the Los Angeles Times.
"Everyone must keep in mind that the level of transmission is so high that you risk being exposed as soon as you leave your home", insisted Barbara Ferrer, recalling the need to comply with the restrictions put in place since the end of November.
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California had successfully contained the spread of the coronavirus at the start of the pandemic, instituting fairly strict containment as early as March, but the situation has rapidly worsened in recent months.
In the past seven days, the most populous US state (around 40 million) has recorded 265,000 new cases alone.