But when the unpredictable coronavirus hit Espinoza, he went from fever to chills to labored breathing that sent him to a Southern California hospital, where he died Monday, just over a week after he was admitted.
Espinoza is one of the last to succumb in what has become California’s deadliest wave. In the past week, an average of 544 people died every day, and on Saturday the state hit a stark milestone of a total of 40,000 deaths, according to data collected by Johns Hopkins University.
In just a year since the virus was first discovered in the state, 1 in 1,000 Californians has died from it.
Espinoza’s wife, Nancy, watched through a glass window in the hospital as her husband breathed his last and then was allowed into the room to be with him. She is now figuring out what to do next and how to raise their 3-year-old son alone.
“I just had so much faith,” said Nancy Espinoza, who lives in a town called Corona by cruel coincidence. “Never in my head would it have made me wonder it would be so serious, even if we hear about it all the time.”
The victims of COVID-19 were young and old, but mostly older. Some were fit and healthy, many more had a mishmash of underlying medical conditions.
The death toll in California has risen rapidly since the worst pandemic surge began in mid-October. New cases and hospitalizations soared to record highs, but have declined rapidly over the past two weeks.
However, the death rate remains astonishingly high, with more than 3,800 in the past week.
It took California six months to register the first 10,000 deaths, and then four months to double to 20,000. In just five weeks, the state reached 30,000. It then took only 20 days to get to 40,000.
Now only New York has more deaths – there are more than 43,000 deaths – but at this rate California will overshadow that too.
California was a model for controlling the virus for much of the year. It issued its first statewide shutdown last March and imposed an ever-changing number of restrictions that have frustrated business owners but saved lives, according to state officials.
Cases fell after a peak in July and started to climb again in the fall. Government Gavin Newsom activated what he called the “emergency brake” on November 16 to halt the reopening of the state economy, keep most public schools closed, ban church services and limit the number of customers in stores.
But the corona virus was already drifting like a runaway train. With Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year on the horizon, public health officials warned people not to get together with people outside the home.
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Still, hospital admissions skyrocketed, and on December 3, Newsom issued a housing contract that divided the state into five regions and required more companies to close or reduce capacity if intensive care units in their region fell to 15%. Four regions with 98% of the state’s population reached that level.
Southern California and the San Joaquin Valley regions were the hardest hit, with some hospitals treating patients in hallways, cafeterias, and gift shops. In Los Angeles, ambulances waited hours to drop off patients.
With improving conditions, all regions are now covered, although many strict restrictions remain.
Cases and deaths in California have disproportionately affected people of color and poorer communities, where families live in busier homes and among those without health insurance. Many also work in jobs with a higher risk of exposure.
The death rate for Latinos is 20% higher than the statewide average, according to figures from the Department of Health. Deaths of black people are 12% higher. The number of cases is 39% higher in communities where the median income is less than $ 40,000.
Los Angeles County, the most populous country in the country with a quarter of the state’s nearly 40 million residents, has more than 40% of virus deaths in California. In November, the daily number of Latino deaths was 3.5 per 100,000 residents. It’s now 40 deaths per 100,000, an increase of more than 1,100%.
The death toll has left other grim signs. Morgues and funeral homes have been overwhelmed, and refrigerated trucks have held bodies.
Maria Rios Luna said it took almost three weeks for her mother’s body to be retrieved from the hospital where she died in early January, as there were 200 other bodies.
Her mother, Bernardina Luna de Rios, had always found ways to make ends meet by raising seven children on her own after surviving a car accident that killed her husband, she said.
Rios Luna, 22, said she has been especially careful with her mother since the pandemic started. She carried hand sanitizer everywhere and immediately washed her hands when she returned to the home they shared with her sister and two children.
SoCal family falter after 40-year-old mother of three dies from COVID-19
She was the one who went to get groceries so that her mother, who was generally healthy, apart from her rheumatoid arthritis, could stay at home. Yet the virus found its way to their home in Fontana.
Her 59-year-old mother was hospitalized with difficulty breathing and her condition deteriorated. Her mother told them not to worry, that she believed in God and that things happened for a reason.
When her heart gave out, her children were allowed to watch their mother through a window, while a nurse inside held a phone to Bernardina’s ear so they could talk to her.
‘Once I saw her in bed, it frankly broke my heart,’ said Rios Luna. “I had never seen my mother so vulnerable.”
After the visit, her mother’s liver stopped working, then her lungs. She died the next day.
“We feel like she was waiting to see her,” said Rios Luna.
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