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LOS ANGELES (CBSLA) — Los Angeles County continued to report worrisome COVID-19 numbers on Monday, with 56 additional deaths and 11,271 new daily cases, bringing the countywide totals to 634,849 cases and 8,931 fatalities.
Local health officials say L.A. County is still in the worst surge of this pandemic, and a local trauma center struggling to make space for patients over the weekend was representative of the fears health officials have been expressing if Angelenos don’t take the warnings seriously.
Respiratory therapist Andrew Hoyt cares for a COVID-19 patient in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) at Sharp Chula Vista Medical Center on Dec. 21, 2020, in Chula Vista, Calif. (Getty Images)
“If we don’t change how we experience the winter holidays, we’ll experience a surge on top of a surge on top of a surge,” said Public Health Director Dr. Barbara Ferrer in a Monday briefing.
Hospital care is being compromised as frontline health care workers are also coping with coronavirus concerns.
According to the county, as of Monday, there were 776 hospital beds available in the county and 30 adult ICU beds.
Of the record 5,709 people with COVID-19 currently hospitalized, 21% of these people were in intensive care as of Monday.
The L.A. County health department predicts there could be more than 7,000 patients hospitalized over the next two weeks, with an average of 110 people dying every day after that.
“I’ve been a physician for almost 20 years. There’s not any situation that I have seen in which hospitals are, across the board, affected in the way that they’re affected right now,” said Dr. Christina Ghaly of the L.A. County Department of Health Services.
The resources listed below can provide information about the pandemic and best practices for staying safe:
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