Read the original article on Best Life. During an interview with Washington University Internal Medicine on Jan. 7, Fauci commented on the worsening situation in California. “There are some regions of the country that are really getting to the point of what we consider the unimaginable where you actually have to triage and determine who’s going to get taken care of and who’s not,” said Fauci. “I refer specifically to the very difficult situation that’s going on in California.” Fauci added that he was speaking particularly about Los Angeles County “where they are running out of beds, and they have an exhausted staff working almost 24 hours a day.” Earlier this week, as a sign of how stretched hospitals are, reports emerged that Los Angeles EMS workers were being told not to transfer patients to the ER who experience cardiac arrest or those who have a low chance of survival. The NIAID director went on to describe what is happening in California as a truly “extraordinary situation.” And for more up-to-date COVID news delivered straight to your inbox, sign up for our daily newsletter. California’s hospitals are completely overwhelmed by the volume of COVID patients seeking care, with ICUs across the state currently at 87 percent capacity. The state is also experiencing an oxygen shortage, according to The New York Times. Additionally, there are more than twice as many COVID patients in California hospitals now than there were at this time last month. To see if the new strain of COVID is in your state, check out The New COVID Strain Is Now in These 8 States. California saw a scary surge of COVID cases over the summer, but The New York Times reports that the state’s new case rate is currently four times higher than it was during that surge. To see what Fauci said about yet another new virus variant that’s circulating, check out Dr. Fauci Just Issued This Warning About Another New COVID Strain. Before singling out California, Fauci said the U.S. as a whole is struggling to combat COVID. “We are in a very, very difficult situation right now,” said Fauci. “The numbers are so extraordinary that we’ve become numb to them. As of yesterday, there have been 360,000 deaths… Every day is a new record for the number of people hospitalized with COVID-19.“ae0fcc31ae342fd3a1346ebb1f342fcb He added: “The numbers that I gave you are very difficult to comprehend—they’re extraordinary—and yet things could actually get a bit worse.” And for more on what’s to come, check out Dr. Fauci Just Made a Scary Admission About the COVID Surge.
