California order-to-home ordering looms as COVID-19 cases explode

The California hit hit another worrying COVID-19 milestone on Tuesday, averaging 14,120 cases per day and more than 8,200 hospital stays – both new records.

The continued surge is putting more pressure on state and local authorities to take more aggressive measures to slow the spread before overwhelming hospitals. Los Angeles County, which was particularly hard hit, reported more than 7,500 new cases – most in a single day. L.A. County is predicted to reach 9,000 cases by next week.

Officials said they would consider a restrictive stay at home order if cases continued to increase, which is now expected as Thanksgiving weekend is likely to spread the virus even further.

Governor Gavin Newsom warned Monday that a new stay-at-home order might come.

It is possible that such an arrangement could only be imposed on counties in the worst form among those on the purple level – although the vast majority of counties are in that level. “We’ll be making some additional information and recommendations in the near future,” Newsom said.

Few details of such an order were disclosed. Dr. Mark Ghaly, California’s secretary for health and human services, said Monday officials could learn from the spring lockdown.

“One of the most important things we learned is that not only can we be more surgical with what we do, but we can actually prescribe it for a shorter or different period of time,” said Ghaly. “Some of these jobs were open-ended early on. We were not sure. Today we know that by taking reliable action, we can influence certain interventions faster, and that is part of what we are considering. “

But there could be some evidence from L.A. County, which now has the toughest restrictions in the state.

LA County officials rolls a “targeted safe-at-home regulation” that will be in force until December 20th. It closes public playgrounds; sets new capacity limits for retail stores, open-air museums, galleries, zoos and aquariums; and forbids all gatherings among people from different households, with the exception of outdoor worship and political demonstrations.

These restrictions are in addition to other restrictions that went into effect last weekincluding another ban while eating outdoors.

On Saturday, LA District Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer hoped these restrictions could be enough to slow the spread. But she stressed that it only works if people follow the rules.

“If that doesn’t work, and in two to three weeks we’re in a worse place than we are, we have to go back and see what other options we have because we can’t go on overwhelming the health system,” Ferrer said. “I don’t think there is any disagreement about it – it is a disaster that we must avoid at all costs.”

Other counties have their own restrictions.

In Santa Clara County, use of the hotel has been limited to essential trips or to those in need of medical isolation or quarantine. The capacity in retail stores was further limited. Authorities also suspended contact sports for professional teams, forcing the San Francisco 49ers look elsewhere to play their home games scheduled for December.

San Francisco will announce further rollbacks this week, including a possible quarantine order for travelers and reduced indoor capacity in companies as the coronavirus continues to rise, city officials said Tuesday.

Dr. San Francisco director of public health Grant Colfax said, “We unfortunately know the worst is likely to come.”

Newsom said Monday that Southern California is expected to run out of ICU capacity in mid to late December if current trends continue. By Christmas Eve, beds in the intensive care unit are expected to represent 107% of capacity in the region. While intensive care treatments have improved since the beginning of the pandemic, all bets will be void once the intensive care units are congested.

According to a Times analysis, the average net increase in people hospitalized with COVID-19 in California over the past week is about 342 patients per day. The acceleration is twice as bad as the summer surge, where the average net increase in hospital admissions in late June over a one-week period was 173 patients per day.

In LA County, hospital stays have more than tripled since Halloween, when about 800 people were hospitalized, and rose over 2,400 on Monday. It was the second straight day the LA County’s hospital highs were broken, and a number 9% higher than the summer wave high.

How about the vaccine?

The development of COVID vaccines offers hope for 2021. But it won’t help with this winter flood.

California expects 327,000 cans Pfizer’s vaccineto go on the forefront of health workers.

The CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices met Tuesday to debate and vote on who should come first in order to receive the first doses of a COVID-19 vaccine. They recommended that initial vaccination efforts focus on frontline health workers as well as residents of long-term care facilities such as nursing homes and assisted living facilities. The more vaccines that are available, the more groups are eligible.

Most experts believe that US vaccination efforts will be in full swing by late spring and early summer as Pfizer and Moderna continue to ramp up production and other vaccine candidates complete their clinical trials and apply for emergency approval.

The Times staff, Tom Curwen and Alex Wigglesworth, contributed to this report.