Governor Gavin Newsome says California is distributing 5,000 body bags mostly to the hard-hit Los Angeles and San Diego areas and has 60 refrigerated trailers standing by as makeshift morgues.
This, in anticipation of a surge of coronavirus deaths from hospitalizations that now are double the summertime peak and threaten to overwhelm the hospital system.
The number of average daily deaths has quadrupled from 41 a month ago to 163 now, while positive cases have surged to more than 32,500 each day. Of those new cases, an anticipated 12% will wind up in the hospital and 12% of those hospitalized will crowd already stretched intensive care units.
That means one day’s worth of cases can be expected to produce a staggering 3,900 hospitalizations and nearly 500 ICU patients.
Newsom says, “we are in the middle of the most acute peak.” The Governor is urging residents to take precautions to slow the spread.
