The latest doom and gloom from the county I live in. Too bad I neither believe it nor give a flying fuck.
BREAKING NEWS FROM THE CARMEL PINE CONE
December 1, 2020, 3:20 p.m.
COUNTY'S INCREASE SLOWS — BUT IS IT AN ANOMALY?
• Hospitals grapple with surge as Newsom warns of 'tipping point,' new lockdowns
This morning the Monterey County health department said it had confirmed 50 new cases of coronavirus among county residents — a welcome respite from recent increases of 150 per day and up. Yesterday's 100 cases in the county were also lower than recent trends.
The development could be temporary, but it isn't just local. California is experiencing its own slowdown in the growth of new cases. Today, the California Department of Public Health said
12,221 additional coronavirus infections had been found statewide, down from 18,350 new daily cases one week ago.
The change is coming to light a day after Gov. Gavin Newsom said the state was at a "tipping point" in the state's coronavirus epidemic and warned that new stay-at-home orders or other "drastic" measures might be needed to curb the spread of the disease. Even with the decline in new cases, he could still order new lockdowns at any time.
One reason would be the increase in hospitalizations, which is likely to continue even if case numbers decline, because serious illness lags initial infection. Here in Monterey County, all three major hospitals report record or near-record numbers of inpatients who have the coronavirus: CHOMP has 20, Natividad has 30, and SVMH has 37.
Officials from the three hospitals painted a grim picture for the Monterey County Board of Supervisors this afternoon.
Salinas Valley Memorial Healthcare System chief medical officer Dr. Allan Radner noted the dramatic rise in cases, which has resulted in about 20 percent of the county's hospital beds being occupied.
“It’s really stressing our capacity,” he said of the surge.
Dr. Martha Blum, Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula's director of infection prevention, predicted “dire days ahead of us” and said the county’s Covid-19 messaging is not having the desired effect of lowering the infection rate.
“As bad as it is today and as rapidly as its increasing today, we know it’s going to get worse,” Blum told the supervisors.
Natividad Medical Center CEO Gary Gray said the “rate of increase almost boggles the mind,” but reiterated that staffing to treat Covid inpatients, not hospital capacity, is the primary worry.
Monterey County health director Dr. Edward Moreno echoed their sentiment, telling the board of supervisors, “I don’t see, unfortunately at this point, any leveling off of the curve."
Nevertheless, the slightly better case numbers of the last two days lowered Monterey County's 7-day average of new cases per day per 100,000 residents to 31.3, which is still sky-high, but is a major drop from the 40.6 recorded on Sunday. The statewide 7-day average is 30.2, according to the CDPH.
And in what is, once again, almost a footnote, today the California Department of Public Health released an
updated coronavirus score for Monterey County of 30.7. On Nov. 4, the county's score was 7.9.
Yesterday, Newsom also made an announcement about the first doses of coronavirus vaccine becoming available in California. None of the new vaccines have government approval, but Newsom said the state would receive 327,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine in "mid-December."
Monterey County is continuing to prepare to receive portions of the vaccine and is awaiting direction from Sacramento and Washington about who should be immunized first, Moreno said this afternoon. Health care workers who are most exposed to coronavirus patients would likely be vaccinated first, and later said that the argument could be made that farmworkers should be vaccinated in the first phases.
To see the most up-to-date charts and tables from the county health department, click
here. Below, you can also find the updated versions of our charts showing coronavirus infections countywide and in the Monterey Peninsula, along with the data for hospitalizations and our chart breaking down Monterey County's coronavirus cases and infection rates by zip code. Please check these charts and tables for the latest data on coronavirus cases in your community.
A Reason article. The emperor(s) have no clothes.