A report has found that more people in California are losing their lives due to the pandemic than ever. The state has been facing around 525 deaths every day. The officials of the state have said that statistics will keep shooting up in the future. They have said that they are providing refrigerated trailers to be used as temporary morgues for beleaguered county coroner’s offices. The Office of Emergency Services Director, Mark Ghilarducci has said that currently, there are 98 refrigerated trailers to help store dead bodies with dignity and respect in the coroner’s offices. He has said that makeshift storage facilities have been set up in the parking lot nearby the coroner’s office, as a person dies every 6 minutes on average in Los Angeles County. The Office of Emergency Services has been looking at the state hospitalization data to calculate how many people might face death in the coming weeks. The state has been observing many models to predict the number of hospital admissions and deaths in the future. The collective projection, which combines all the models, predicts that around 10000 people are expected to die in the next three weeks.
Experts have said that it might take states at least two weeks to understand the full extent of the damage by the virus during the holiday season. Many people have disregarded safety measures such as social distancing and wearing masks during the holiday season. Experts have said that on average around 12 percent of people who have tested positive for COVID19 have been hospitalized. Therefore, if there is a spike in new cases, hospitals will run out of their limits. It will result in more people dying in the coming weeks. Mark Ghilarducci has said that the state has set its mass facility management plan to prevent large backups in morgues. He has said that they will continue to work with each of 58 counties to ensure that these dead bodies are taken care of in the most dignified manner. The state has converted Disneyland and Dodger stadium into super vaccination sites, which are capable of administering more than 12000 doses per day. As per the report, California has been allotted more than 3.5 million doses of the vaccine and the state has been able to distribute only 1 million doses so far. However, Governor Gavin Newsom has said that the officials are hopeful of vaccinating around 1.5 million people by this week. He has tried to shine a light on hopeful trends saying that the rate of hospitalization and intensive care admission have reduced in the last seven days. He has said that the number of people testing positive for the virus as well has declined in one week.
The Governor of California has lifted the stay-at-home order for the 13 – county Sacramento region after seeing a decline in the number of new infections and hospitalizations. The 13- county Sacramento region included the state’s capital city and Lake Tahoe, which is a famous winter tourist destination. This decision will allow the reopening of hair salons and other businesses in the region. Restaurants as well will resume outdoor dining. Experts have said that lifting stay-at-home order will result in a slight increase in the number of customers inside retail outlets. California is the most populous state in the US with around 40 million people. On average, the state has been reporting nearly 41000 new cases each day for the last two weeks. The state has seen the second-highest number of deaths in the US and it is in the 39th position in the number of deaths per capita at 81.8.
