San Diego County set another record Friday with the latest daily coronavirus new case total hitting 4,550. That’s 72 more than the previous record set on New Year’s Eve.
The twin peaks, arriving six and eight days after a major holiday, appear to confirm the concerns expressed by epidemiologists, public health experts and health care leaders throughout December: Getting too close to each other during the holidays will come at a terrible cost in the new year.
“We anticipated that cases would spike after the holidays, and they did,” said Dr. Wilma Wooten, the county’s public health director, in a statement. “We need to do a better job following the public health guidelines, especially now that the more contagious variant of COVID-19 is in our communities.
“San Diegans should not be gathering with people outside their household and should stay home as much as possible.”
Formally called B.1.1.7., the new variant Wooten referred to continues to show a presence in the region, now having been confirmed to be the cause of 28 local coronavirus cases and the suspected cause of 13 more. Genetic sequencing is necessary to confirm the variant, often called the “UK strain,” which adds a time lag before the true viral version is known.
The main concern remains what so many new cases — the single day has now surpassed the 4,000 mark three times since Dec. 30 — will do to local hospital admissions.
Hospitals have scrambled in recent weeks to convert spaces not previously used for critical care to serve patients in need of critical care, adopting team nursing approaches that often depart from previous nurse-to-patient ratios designed to ensure quality care.
Though that work has so far kept the region from running out of ICU beds, the latest county report shows there were just 44 staffed and immediately available as of Thursday, the most recent day for which data was available.
The Link LonkJanuary 09, 2021 at 09:58AM
https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/health/story/2021-01-08/san-diego-sets-fresh-single-day-new-case-record
San Diego County sets fresh single-day coronavirus case record - The San Diego Union-Tribune
https://news.google.com/search?q=fresh&hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US:en
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