The COVID-19 surge still affecting Central California is so dire that health officials are pleading with state officials to make it easier to transfer hospital patients to areas like Los Angeles County. “We don’t have enough hospitals to serve the population and the needs,” said Dr. Rais Vohra, the Fresno County interim health officer. Hospitals across the entire San Joaquin Valley are “often running over capacity, so that they’re holding dozens and dozens of patients in the emergency department.”
Ok so let’s internalize this paragraph. They have more demand for services than ability to service. In Fresno, CO 22 of every 100,000 citizens are currently hospitalized for Covid. In Los Angeles and Orange counties? Six. Nearly 1/4th of Fresno.
We continue..
“It’s really hard to transfer across counties in the state of California,” Vohra said. “When you look at Los Angeles ... they have hundreds and hundreds of open beds in Los Angeles County.”
“If we need to transfer patients out to keep our hospitals operational, we should really be able to do that with one or two phone calls. That’s not the situation right now. And so that’s a point of frustration that we’re hearing from multiple different facilities,” Vohra said. “We’re trying to really decompress as much as possible in anticipation of those winter numbers.”
My question for Mr. Vohra is, “Why do you think Los Angeles County has so many open beds?”
One of the reasons, if not the main reason, is that Fresno is at 55 percent vaccination and L.A. County is at 65 percent. And that is not even the highest in the state. In San Francisco, it is at 78 percent.
What is the effect on those populations? Well, a study was done on Texas and Florida back in July, trying to answer the question, “What if the vaccination rates were 74 percent?”
The success of COVID-19 vaccination campaigns in many states demonstrates the real-world feasibility, and impact, of achieving high vaccination coverage. By the end of July, the five highest-performing states — Vermont, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maine, and Rhode Island — had fully vaccinated an average of 74 percent of adults and lowered rates of COVID-related hospitalizations and deaths compared with other states. In contrast, the two states with the greatest burdens of cases, hospitalizations, and deaths currently — Florida and Texas — had fully vaccinated only 59.3 percent and 55.6 percent of their adult residents, respectively.
We calculated the number of deaths, hospitalizations, and cases that could have been averted if Florida and Texas had reached vaccination coverage of 74 percent. We found that by doing so, together the two states could have averted more than 70,000 hospitalizations and 4,700 deaths by the end of July.
The raw numbers as a percentage are even more stark-
Our previous analyses have demonstrated that the U.S. vaccination campaign against COVID-19 prevented nearly 1.25 million hospitalizations and 280,000 deaths nationwide by the end of June. Our current analysis found that fully vaccinating 74 percent of adults in Florida by the end of July would have reduced hospitalizations by nearly 39,000, from 144,782 to 106,113, and deaths by an estimated 2,806, from 19,489 to 16,683 (table). In Texas, increasing vaccination rates would have reduced hospitalizations by more than 32,000, from 163,058 to 130,755, and deaths by more than 1,900, from 29,435 to 27,525, according to our estimates (Table 1).
So now redder California, along with the San Joaquin Valley, doing the worst of any area of the state with Covid, wants blue California to bail them out. But what is most amazing is time and time again we have seen a lockstep alignment with Trump vote in 2020 and vaccination rates. Fresno County, as said is 55 percent fully vaccinated.
The results in 2020? 53-45 Biden/Harris.
Los Angeles County is 65 percent vaccinated. Results? 71-27, for Biden/Harris. Does that mean the ceiling for vaccination rate in L.A. county is 71 percent? I won’t say that, but don’t be surprised if that is the final number.
And San Francisco? 85-12, Biden/Harris. It is stunning how red America has been willing to walk off of the Covid cliff.
Even more stunning is their shock at when responsbile blue America takes a few extra minutes to provide the marchers a parachute.
-ROC
I am weak, dealing with a stretch of fatigue I have been unable to pinpoint. We continue to monitor for cancer recurrence. This is the only living my health allows me to earn and I appreciate you. My newsletter is unaffected. Sign up here to subscribe! It publishes every Wednesday and is full of original reporting, laughs, and fun!
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-ROC