All tagged california covid

Here's how the California Hospital Association counts extra beds

Here's how the California Hospital Association counts extra beds

Tatiana Prophet
Public Health

In early December, we stumbled on internal data maintained by the California Hospital Association. It appears our access was granted due to an oversight, because when we requested more information, we were told that the information we accessed was not available to the general public. We have re-entered the data into the chart below.

It’s important to note that many of these beds are licensed, but not staffed. We called some of the more overwhelmed hospitals, namely Keck Hospital at USC. The supervisor on duty was surprised to hear that they had 210 “surge” beds listed. Most likely this is because they are not yet staffed.

See “The L.A. County bed shortage seems more like a budget problem.”

Are California cases exploding? Look at the data

Are California cases exploding? Look at the data

Tatiana Prophet
Public Health

The county where Covid-19 cases have been consistently highest, Los Angeles, has grown in ICU patients by only 3 percent; but sparsely populated counties have experienced double-digit daily growth in ICU occupied beds. Make sure you know the raw numbers of occupied ICU beds, though. They’re extremely low, since some of these counties have never had an ICU patient. One county, Yolo, has a total of five Covid-19 patients, with the previous day’s admission going from zero to 4 patients between June 23 and June 24. That’s an increase of 400 percent while the raw number of serious cases is extremely low. Still, it’s not nothing, and those four people could have had contact with several other people in these counties.

The raw number of ICU bed use is at an all-time high, at 1,268 in the state. That number has held steady between 1,000 and 1,100 through some of April, plus May and June.