Orange County could be under strict pandemic rules by the weekend if intensive care capacity among Southern California’s hospitals dips below 15%, triggering new, regionally targeted stay-at-home orders announced Thursday, Dec. 3, by Gov. Gavin Newsom.
By Thursday, ICUs across Southern California had 20.6% of beds available, a supply that was shrinking fast.
With the new mandate, Newsom seeks to stem mounting coronavirus cases that threaten to overwhelm hospitals across California. In harder-hit regions, including all Southern California counties, that’s expected to happen within the next couple of days, he said during a news conference.
“This is not a permanent state,” Newsom said, calling the current growth in cases the “final surge” of the pandemic ahead of a forthcoming vaccine rollout.
When triggered, the three-week order would force personal care services, hair salons and barbershops, bars, playgrounds, museums and some other sectors – some of which were already limited by Orange County’s purple tier status – to close.
However, schools already offering in-person instruction, take-out and delivery from restaurants and other critical infrastructure can stay open. Retail stores and shopping centers can let customers indoors at 20% capacity.
The goal, Newsom said, is to curb multi-household mixing and take most activities outside.
The order also would build on the two-week-old overnight curfew, which was intended to limit non-essential work and private gatherings between 10 p.m. and 5 a.m.
Though the effects of Thanksgiving gatherings are not yet known, Newsom said a “surge on top of a surge” could hit soon.
“The bottom line is: If we don’t act now, our hospital system will be overwhelmed,” he said.
State officials grouped counties into five regions: Southern California, the Bay Area, the San Joaquin Valley, Greater Sacramento and Northern California.
The Southern California zone includes largely rural counties from Mono to Imperial and coastal counties from San Luis Obispo to San Diego.
“We are using a regional approach in part because that is how hospitals and health care delivery systems work,” so when one county’s hospitals are pressured, it can lean on a neighboring county for relief, said Dr. Mark Ghaly, Health and Human Services secretary.
Regions will remain under the order for three weeks, and if the area’s ICU capacity rebounds over 15%, the stricter rules will be lifted.
Overall COVID-19 hospitalizations in Orange County reached an all-time high of 735 on Thursday, breaking a record 722 set July 14, during the summer surge.
The state’s strategy centers around preserving critical intensive care beds, where a hospital’s sickest patients, COVID-19 or not, receive often long-term treatment.
In Orange County, 17% of ICU beds among 33 hospitals were available by Wednesday, according to the county’s Health Care Agency. Since June, the supply of beds countywide had held steady between 30% and 40%.
Surge facilities, including the 180-bed Fairview Developmental Center in Costa Mesa, are warming up to meet the coming demand for emergency care, Newsom said.
Dr. Shruti Gohil, associate medical director of epidemiology and infection prevention at UC Irvine Medical Center, said there’s been a clear surge at the hospital over the past two weeks, including in the ICU.
“We’re feeling it,” Gohil said. “We went through some of this in July, so we have some of our previously well-laid plans and any sort of lessons learned from that have been very well oiled and implemented at this stage.”
The end-of-year surge is no surprise to the hospital’s staff. Health care workers are ready, she said.
“We have enough ICU capacity, we have begun making plans to shift the amount of regular care to shift to ICU care,” strategies that all Orange County hospitals are now implementing, she said.
Plus, there are new coronavirus treatments available to help the sickest patients recover, Gohil said.
“Compared to the first time that we surged … we do have a number of treatments available, that we hope will help mitigate some of the risks for our patients,” she said, such as the drug Remdesivir.
Orange County residents earlier in the pandemic flattened the curve by diligently masking up and social distancing, which kept hospitals from being flooded, Gohil said.
“We could have been so much worse than where we were at in March and July,” she said.
An impending stay-at-home order would come at a unique moment in the pandemic, when most are tired of months of pandemic rules and many inevitably will be out and about, shopping for the holidays.
For Lucy Dunn, president and chief executive of the Orange County Business Council, forcing restaurants to close outdoor service once again makes her worry it might prompt COVID-weary people to dine together indoors, which “seems counter-intuitive.”
Dunn questions state officials placing tougher guidelines on business sectors while also saying that private gatherings are the main culprit driving new infections.
“Bottom line: The issues businesses are struggling with is it appears that infections, according to the state, are coming from gatherings in homes,” she said. “Businesses have introduced all the safety protocols (and) for the most part are doing their best to keep customers safe.”
To help support struggling businesses through the winter, Orange County residents need to double down on good pandemic habits, Dunn said.
“People need to mask up, we need to test in order to get the asymptomatic folks identified and isolated and, most important, is to not lose hope – vaccines are on the way,” she said.
On Thursday, some small business owners were heaving another sigh, more out of frustration at the constantly changing restrictions than in relief that they won’t have to shut down.
“It’s been very nerve-racking. It’s so hard to know from one minute to the next what’s going on,” said Kathy Cervantes, who along with her husband owns two restaurants in the Good Food hall on Anaheim’s Center Street.
At Engine Ear Toys in Newport Beach’s Fashion Island, business has been good since Black Friday and is expected to remain brisk as Christmas approaches, manager Antoine Maalouli said – and so far, they’ve been able to manage the limited customer capacity.
The toy store added air purifiers and is requiring customers to wear masks, and “everyone seems to be patient enough to wait outside,” he said. “We’re going to try our best to keep our doors open.”
Keeping down the number of shoppers hasn’t been a problem at vintage clothing store Swellegant in Newport Beach, owner Nicole Bernstein said, but that’s because there haven’t been many of them.
Most of the sales at her Newport Beach location (she also has a Los Angeles shop) are for retro-themed parties and New Year’s events, which no one is having this year.
“Usually my December (sales), the ugly Christmas sweaters, that carries me through,” she said. “This year I have no idea what I’m going to do.”
Cervantes said even with federal aid for small businesses, it’s been a struggle. She used a grant from Anaheim to add more outdoor lights and seating – tables and chairs that will soon go empty.
One small positive is that FRAN, an on-demand transit system serving central Anaheim, has begun delivering food from local restaurants. Cervantes said she’s hoping if people are stuck at home, they’ll consider ordering take-out.
On Thursday, friends Jim Cocores and Bob Lee ate sandwiches on the patio of a San Clemente restaurant, an activity they’ll likely have to go without in coming weeks.
Cocores said he thinks outdoor restaurant dining should continue to be allowed, but he also understands the danger the coronavirus poses.
“It’s hard to say what’s right,” he said. “If we can all get on board, I feel we will be OK.”
Lee said he feels bad for small business owners impacted by the restrictions.
“The reality is we do have to get past this, somehow,” he said.
During the Thursday news conference, the governor said he recognized the mental stress that such sweeping orders induce and encouraged outdoor play and exercise.
“We need to meet this moment head on and we need to do everything we can to stem the tide, to bend the curve and give us the time necessary, by bending that curve, to get those vaccines in the hands of all Californians, all across the state,” Newsom said.
Posted by: https://anaheimsigns.com
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