As the COVID-19 pandemic ravages California's Central Valley, Fresno County is bracing for the possibility of having to ration healthcare in its hospitals, choosing who will receive lifesaving measures.
The pandemic is now hitting hardest in the San Joaquin Valley, the Sacramento area and rural Northern California, in terms of per capita hospitalizations.While in some regions, hospitals could decide individually to announce the implementation of crisis standards of care, it’s possible that“I think it would make most sense to declare it as a county, or possibly even as a region, just because we work together and coordinate so much across the different facilities,” Vohra said.
Additional medical staff is expected to arrive soon to help Fresno County. Lynch said he worked with state officials and expects to receive some kind of federal medical team, perhaps 16 people, to assist at Community Regional Medical Center, and perhaps another team sent to Kern County, home to Bakersfield, which is “also having a real difficult time right now.”
The additional staff will help, Lynch said, as the shortage of resources is not one of physical space, but of trained healthcare providers. “They still have the ability to add more surge, as long as they had more staffing,” Lynch said.L.A. Times data show coronavirus cases slowing in the state, led by improvements in Southern California and the Bay Area, but more rural areas continue to struggle.
The San Joaquin Valley has California’s worst per-capita rate of COVID-19 hospitalizations. With 1,657 people with COVID-19 in hospitals as of Thursday, the San Joaquin Valley had 38 COVID-19 hospitalizations for every 100,000 residents — double California’s overall rate of 19 hospitalizations for every 100,000 residents, according to a Times analysis.
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