A district of 12 California counties is out of its ICU bed capacity as the second wave of COVID-19 is ravaging the state’s rural Central Valley.
San Joaquin County, an agricultural center where the majority of fruits and vegetables are grown in the United States, has taken a particularly hard hit in recent weeks.
ICU capacity in all seven hospitals in the county reached 100 percent on Saturday, the highest rate anywhere in California. According to the state’s Department of Public Health.
On Monday, a team of 17 nurses is expected to arrive at one local hospital that built the second intensive care unit area where it plans to receive coronavirus patients from the other six San Joaquin County hospitals.
Many of the sick are Latino farm workers.
A doctor at Adventist Health Lodi Memorial Hospital in Lodi, about 100 miles east of San Francisco, said that during the first wave of COVID in the spring, 75 percent of patients were Hispanics.
The hospital investigated the direction and found that the COVID warnings did not reach many in the community, due to distrust of hospital staff and the government.
“We don’t have the same culture and toughness about following the guidelines here as San Francisco, for example [has]. “We need to be educated and educated as much as we can in order to have some relief,” said Dr. Patricia Iris.
There is also an ideological divide between the English-speaking locals in Lodi and the state’s liberal government leaders.
Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom A. Request to stay home for 21 days Last week – leading to a protest of the San Joaquin companies.
Pat Patrick, president and CEO of the Woody Chamber of Commerce, signed a letter urging Newsom to allow companies to stay open.
“There is no reason or rhyme for some of these things and certainly no data,” said Patrick.
At least one restaurant, Denis’ Country Kitchen, remained open despite the mandate.
With wires
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