California virus surge brings field hospitals, body bags

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Hospitals are filling up so fast in California that officials are rolling out mobile field facilities and scrambling to hire more doctors and nurses to prepare for an expected surge in coronavirus patients.

Meanwhile 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 in anticipation of a surge of COVID-19 deaths, Gov. Gavin Newsom said Tuesday.

Fresno's Community Regional Medical Center in central California is rushing 50 beds into a building near the hospital and bringing in medical staff from outside the state to help staff the makeshift ward beginning Friday.

Dr. Rais Vohra, Fresno County’s interim public health officer, said alternate care sites will be needed as intensive care units fill up over the next few weeks.

“We’re preparing for that moment when we say we need to start using up these other spaces because we’re running out of space in the hospitals to put people, and we’re just hoping that we have enough resources to match the needs,” Vohra said.

Fresno County's 1 million residents are under a stay-home order that started last weekend when the San Joaquin Valley’s regional ICU capacity dipped below 15%. On Tuesday the region's ICU capacity was at 1.6%, state officials said.

The number of average daily deaths statewide 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 in California can be expected to produce a staggering 3,900 hospitalizations and nearly 500 ICU...