All tagged public health

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.”

Is Los Angeles' new Covid lockdown justified?

Is Los Angeles' new Covid lockdown justified?

Tatiana Prophet
Public Health

California and Los Angeles have both issued new Covid restrictions with the news that Covid hospitalizations nationwide have exceeded 100,000 and the Golden State’s Covid hospitalizations appear to be approaching 10,000.

We would like to look at different areas the entire state, but since Los Angeles has the highest concentration of cases, deaths and hospitalizations, we thought we would zoom in on the L.A. data first. Before we do, let’s interpret the state’s overall numbers.

Even as cases have zoomed past 1 million to reach 1.2 million in just a few weeks, because the state has conducted 24 million PCR tests, the positivity rate in California is just 5.1 percent. The World Health Organization stated in May that the positivity rate should remain below 5 percent for 14 days to be safe for an area to reopen.