Health & Fitness
SoCal's ICU Capacity Slips Under 5.3% As Vaccine Rollout Begins
Intensive care unit beds became scarce in the southern reaches of the Golden State as vaccine distribution was set to begin this weekend.
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA — Intensive care bed capacity throughout the Southern California region sunk to 5.3 percent Saturday, and has been hitting a new low each day for the past several days as coronavirus continued to surge across the state.
The region, stretching from San Luis Obispo County to San Diego County, came under a sweeping new stay-at-home order last week after ICU capacity fell to 10.9 percent Monday, below the 15 percent threshold.
And as of Saturday, the San Joaquin Valley region, which also fell under the stay-at-home order last week, reported that no ICU capacity was available.
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Meanwhile, in the Bay Area ICU capacity held at 17.6 and the Northern California region remained at 27.4 percent. In the Greater Sacramento region, ICU capacity was at 12.7 percent.
The grim news coincided with the announcement of the Pfizer vaccine rollout, which the FDA officially authorized for safe use in the United States Friday. The first shipments could arrive to the Golden State as soon as Sunday, Gov. Gavin Newsom tweeted Saturday afternoon.
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"As California faces reduced ICU capacity, we must remain vigilant over the next few weeks," Newsom said in a statement Friday. "At the same time, today’s FDA Emergency Use Authorization of a COVID-19 vaccine is a tremendous step toward safe and equitable vaccine distribution in California."
The Western States Scientific Safety Review Workgroup was set to meet and conduct its own assessment of the vaccine Saturday, Newsom said on Twitter. An initial 325,600 doses were expected to arrive this weekend.
"Hope is on the horizon," Newsom tweeted Saturday morning.
After the western states' scientific workgroup approves the vaccine for use in California, the first doses will be distributed among health care workers and those in "long-term care."
Newsom visited an ultra-low temperature storage facility at University of California, Davis Medical Center, where officials were preparing for the arrival of the Pfizer vaccine. The site is one of many across the state that will store the two-dose vaccine, which must be stored in a negative 80 degree, ultra-low temperature freezer.
But vaccines were not expected to be available to the general public for quite some time, possibly spring of 2021. Until then, officials are pleading with the public to slow the surge as ICU capacity continues to plummet at an alarming rate.
In Orange County, where the percentage of available ICU beds rose from 10.7 percent Friday to 11.2 percent, the county's Health Care Agency's EMS medical director was advising hospitals to cancel elective surgeries this week to prepare for a surge of COVID-19 patients.
"Hospitals are overwhelmed with admitted patients to both the floors and the ICUs. At the current rate of deterioration, the EMS system may collapse unless emergency directives are implemented now," Dr. Carl Schultz wrote in a letter placing hospitals and ambulance providers on high alert.
The letter urges hospitals to activate surge plans, establish alternate treatment areas in emergency departments to expand capacity, cancel all elective surgeries, apply for state waivers in support of surge plans and establish emergency operations centers.
"To those who have chosen not to take this painful but necessary actions, there is still time, but you must act now," Schultz wrote.
Vaccines have already been shipped from Belgium and were on the way to Orange County, with about 25,000 doses en route, according to county officials.
As the new stay-at-home orders took hold for millions of Southern California and San Joaquin Valley residents last week, coronavirus infections continue on an upward trajectory across the state.
Given the stark numbers, several Northern California counties — Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, San Francisco, Sonoma and Santa Clara, — banded together and decided to enforce the latest order ahead of a mandate from the state's Department of Public Health and announced by Gov. Gavin Newsom.
On Saturday the state reported a 10.2 percent positivity rate, with 35,729 new cases recorded, adding to a total of 1,521,432 cases statewide. Some 225 people died of COVID-19 in California on Saturday, adding to a death toll of 20,847.
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