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Hospitals running above normal capacity as Covid-19 cases, hospitalizations rise in California

A customer enters a Fitness SF gym on October 15, 2021 in San Francisco, California. (AFP photo)

The number of cases and hospitalizations is rising in the US state of California amid the Covid-19 pandemic.

Gov. Gavin Newsom warned the public about the spike on Tuesday, calling on Californians to “keep your immunity up.”

“Covid cases are beginning to rise. Winter months [mean] people indoors and more possibilities for spread,” Newsom said in a tweet. “Get your booster.”

Dan Lynch, the director of the Central California Emergency Medical Services Agency, told LA Times that hospitals are running beyond their normal capacity.

“The bigger hospitals are probably between 110 percent to 130 percent of normal capacity. And they are all holding ICU patients, again, back in their emergency departments,” Lynch said. “We’re seeing the hospital emergency departments overwhelmed.”

For instance, hospitals in Fresno County, the most populous county in the region, “really have never left the crisis,” he added.

Fresno County interim health officer Dr. Rais Vohra suggested that doctors and official have been taken aback by the way the trends are moving.

“If you asked me two weeks ago what I thought would happen, I really thought that we were going to have a nice, relaxing November,” Vohra said. Now, “it’s been very humbling just because this pandemic keeps throwing us curveballs and this November plateau is really keeping us very busy.”

This is while the deadly pandemic keeps taking more lives in the US and vaccine hesitancy remains a serious issue for the health sector.

The Biden administration has given businesses until Jan. 4 to comply with a vaccine-or-test mandate ruling that is estimated to affect more than 80 million people if it can survive lawsuits by Republican-controlled states.

Since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, the conservative-leaning portion of the population has viewed efforts to tackle the virus with skepticism.

Vaccines and masks have turned into a political issue as authorities put increasing efforts into taking control of the coronavirus pandemic.


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