In a move that outlines just how severe the Covid-19 situation is in the United States, ambulances in Los Angeles County have been told to only bring those patients to hospital who have a decent chance of survival. This means that severely ill patients who are deemed to have a slim chance of survival will be left to die regardless.
The decision comes as hospitals are overwhelmed with people suffering the affects of Covid-19 resulting in hospital critical care beds and intensive care units becoming full-up.
In Los Angeles County alone, there are over 7,600 people hospitalised with Covid-19, over a fifth of whom are in intensive care. Many of those lucky enough to be taken to hospital are waiting for hours in ambulances while beds are made available for them. One person in Los Angeles County is now dying from Covid-19 every 15 minutes.
The sharp rise in hospitalisations come after a sharp rise in infections over the festive period. The county had 400,000 cases recorded on November 30th, just shortly after Thanksgiving, but have now registered well over 800,000 cases. The test positivity rate is also over 20%, the World Health Organisation regards Covid-19 under some sort of control when the test positivity rate is below 5%.
In many cases, all non-critical care for other illnesses and injuries has stopped and normal wards, as well as churches and gyms, have now been opened as critical care centres for Covid-19 patients.
Medical supervisor, Hilda Solis, said of the grim situation:
"Hospitals are declaring internal disasters and having to open church gyms to serve as hospital units."
The Los Angeles County Emergency Medical Services Agency (EMS) released a statement saying:
"Effective immediately, due to the severe impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on EMS and 9-1-1 Receiving Hospitals, adult patients (18 years of age or older) in blunt traumatic and nontraumatic out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) shall not be transported [if]return of spontaneous circulation (ROSC) is not achieved in the field."
It continued:
"Given the acute need to conserve oxygen, effective immediately, EMS should only administer supplemental oxygen to patients with oxygen saturation below 90%."
Dr. Marc Eckstein, the commander of the Los Angeles Fire Department EMS bureau, told reporters:
"One of our biggest challenges right now is getting our ambulances out of the emergency department. When our paramedics and EMTs transport a patient to an emergency department, there's a transfer of care that has to take place. Patients who are unstable or unable to be safely transferred to the waiting room or to a chair, need a bed in the emergency department to be transferred to. And those beds are lacking right now."
The United States recorded a record death toll from Covid-19 of over 4,000 in recent days bringing the total number of deaths to 370,000. It is now widely believed that despite the rollout of vaccines, the U.S. may lose almost as many people to Covid-19 as it lost in World War II and the U.S. Civil War.
COMMENTS