MISSION VIEJO, Calif. (Reuters) – Southern California is so overwhelmed with coronavirus cases that patients are backed up as they try to enter hospitals, and appear to be trapped in another log jam as soon as they leave.
At a hospital in Orange County, ambulances full of patients line up for intensive care room, and COVID-19 patients fill the corridor of the emergency room.
In nearby Los Angeles County, where people die from the disease every eight minutes, and in other hard-hit areas, refrigerated trailers will be brought in to provide additional storage capacity for corpses.
“When we’re full of COVID patients, we can’t take care of the community at large,” said Dr. Jim Keany, 54, the managing partner for emergency care physicians at Providence Mission Hospital in Mission Viejo. “Every bed is full, every nurse and doctor is busy caring for COVID patients.”
One patient waited more than five hours in the ambulance before being admitted, Keany said.
Despite stringent stay-at-home measures strengthened across most of the state last month, California, the most populous state with nearly 40 million people, leads the United States with nearly 2.6 million COVID-19 cases, more than a million more than the next state, according to a Reuters census of official data.
The death toll of more than 28,000 trails only that of New York and Texas.
With the bodies piling up, the California Office of Emergency Services said it has sent 88 trailers to needy areas across the state.
The Los Angeles County Coroner’s Office headquarters will receive 10 mortuary trailers, in addition to 12 set up there in April, spokeswoman Sarah Ardalani said.
Orange County officials had previously allowed hospitals to relocate patients when they were full, but now that virtually all hospitals have reached capacity, the policy has been withdrawn, resulting in long waits for treatment, Keany said.
“We push our carpenters and facility people to the limit by trying to create a space where we can manage patients,” said Keany.
Dr. Robert Goldberg, 44, a pulmonologist and intensive care physician at Providence Mission Hospital, called on the public to help mitigate the threat by wearing masks, keeping social distance, and getting the vaccine as soon as it becomes available.
“COVID is real. It’s life-threatening, ”said Goldberg. “People of all ages die. We must work together. We have to go through this together. “
Reporting by Lucy Nicholson; Additional reporting by Steve Gorman and Jane Ross; Written by Daniel Trotta; Editing by William Mallard