|
 California Governor Gavin Newsom said mandatory constraints on
social gatherings and business activities would almost certainly be
renewed for at least three more weeks in Southern California -
encompassing the state's biggest metropolitan areas - and its
agricultural heartland, the San Joaquin Valley.
Newsom said a formal decision on continuing the stay-at-home orders,
among the most stringent in the United States, would be announced on
Tuesday, based on trends projected by health authorities for the
coming weeks.
He said greater diligence was needed in avoiding crowds and
unnecessary travel in order to curb a raging pandemic that threatens
to overwhelm healthcare systems before COVID vaccines can be made
widely available to the public this coming spring.
"This is an anxious period," Newsom told reporters in an online
briefing.
Since U.S. regulatory approval was granted to two vaccines earlier
this month, some 300,000 doses have been administered in California,
the most populous U.S. state with 40 million residents, according to
Newsom. Most of those injections have gone to front-line medical
professionals.
Nationwide, well over 2 million people have received the first of
the prescribed two-dose vaccine regimen, the U.S. Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention reported.
Among them were residents and staff of a nursing home that made
headlines as ground zero of the nation's earliest major COVID-19
outbreak - the Life Care Center in Kirkland, Washington, outside
Seattle.
Injections were given to nearly all of the facility's 69 patients
and most of its employees on Monday, 10 months after the first of 32
coronavirus-related deaths among residents was made public in late
February, Life Care officials said.
"This is a great way to end the year," the facility's executive
director, Ellie Schutt, said in a statement.
Nursing homes and other long-term care facilities around the country
were among the hardest hit by the highly contagious respiratory
virus early in the pandemic, reflecting the decision to make them a
high-priority in the vaccine rollout.
More recently, an ominous surge of cases has strained hospitals to
the breaking point in California and elsewhere, a consequence of
increased holiday-season travel and socializing by Americans
disregarding public health warnings.
[to top of second column] |
 CRISIS SEEN WORSENING IN
JANUARY
The situation has grown particularly dire in Los
Angeles and neighboring counties - home to about
half the state's population - and in the farming
communities of the San Joaquin Valley to the
north. Hospitals in both regions have struggled
with an alarming influx of COVID patients that
has left ICUs with little or no additional bed
space.
The San Francisco Bay area and greater
Sacramento are also under stay-at-home orders,
with ICU capacities hovering just under 10% and
17%, respectively. They come up for possible
renewal of COVID restrictions early next month.
For now most California residents are required
to remain at home and avoid travel, except as
necessary for permitted activities such as
grocery shopping, medical appointments, dog
walks and individual outdoor exercise.
The orders also place restrictions on a host of commercial
activities, with restaurants limited to takeout and pickup service
only and bars closed altogether.
Daily COVID-19 hospitalizations and ICU admissions have begun to
plateau over the past two weeks statewide in a sign that more
Californians are abiding by social-distancing and mask-wearing
mandates, Newsom said. However, the numbers have continued to rise
sharply in Los Angeles County and the neighboring counties of San
Bernardino and Riverside, he said.
Dr. Mark Ghaly,
California's health secretary, said officials are bracing for a
worsening of the situation into mid-to late-January, as heightened
virus transmissions anticipated from Christmas and New Year's
holiday celebrations translate into more illnesses and deaths.
California has lost 3,238 lives to COVID during the past 14 days,
and averaged 230 deaths daily over the past week, pushing total
coronavirus fatalities in the state above 24,000 to date.
The United States has recorded more than 19 million infections and
333,000 deaths since the pandemic began. Daily cases are running at
more than 180,000 nationwide, with nearly 2,200 Americans dying
every 24 hours during the past week.
Over 118,000 coronavirus patients were being treated in U.S.
hospitals across the country as of Sunday night, according to a
Reuters tally of state-by-state health data.
(Reporting by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Editing by Richard Chang
and Michael Perry)
[© 2020 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.]
Copyright 2020 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Thompson Reuters is solely responsible for this content. |
