California distributing more refrigerated trailers to use as morgues for COVID deaths
California’s coronavirus surge this winter has deepened beyond the point of overloading hospitals and is now also threatening to overwhelm coroners, as the pace of COVID-19 deaths accelerates rapidly in the state.
Amid the deepening crisis, the California Office of Emergency Services announced Thursday that it has launched two new mutual aid plans “to address the fallout from the overwhelming number of cases California is now facing and that is continuing to climb.”
Within those two plans, a multi-casualty plan and a coroner mutual aid plan, Cal OES says it has procured 88 refrigerated trailers that can be distributed across the state and used as temporary morgues.
Ten of the trailers were leased by OES and have been sent to Los Angeles, Imperial and San Bernardino counties in Southern California plus Monterey and Sonoma counties in the Bay Area.
An Illinois-based company called Hub Group has donated the remaining 78 trucks; the state did not specify to which counties these trailers have been or will be sent.
The state will also help establish a temporary morgue in the parking lot of the Los Angeles County Coroner facility, made up of five OES-supplied refrigerated trailers plus five supplied by the county.
The actions are intended to “address the increased storage needed to mitigate the bottleneck caused by a surge in fatalities,” the OES news release said, pointing out that these deaths can be direct or indirect deaths from the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We can ensure we don’t get large backups, or, if we do have backups, they’re dealt with respect and dignity,” Cal OES Director Mark Ghilarducci said in a prepared statement.
The grim actions are being taken as California’s rate of new COVID-19 deaths and the number of critically ill virus patients in intensive care units statewide have each soared to record highs — and as health officials expect an even worse surge to take hold in the coming days, when people with infections linked to Christmas and New Year’s Eve start to end up in hospitals.
The state in the past two weeks has confirmed more than 4,600 new coronavirus deaths for an average of 328 per day, according to the California Department of Public Health. That’s more than double the peak from summer, and more than five times as many as were reported in the two weeks before Thanksgiving, state data show.
Deaths are still most highly concentrated in Southern California and the San Joaquin Valley. CDPH has reported both of those regions, which combine for 27 million residents, at 0% ICU availability for three full weeks as of Friday.
On Friday, the state reported the Bay Area’s ICU availability at 3% and Greater Sacramento’s at 6.4%, the lowest points yet for each region.
Statewide, over 4,800 virus patients were in ICUs as of Friday’s update, a record high that continues to expand almost every day.
The consequences of weeks of hospitals packed beyond capacity in Southern California and the San Joaquin Valley have been skyrocketing death tolls and health systems being forced to make difficult decisions on how best to ration care, supplies, space and other resources — all of which have the potential to increase fatalities not just in COVID-19 patients but in patients requiring ICU care for any reason.
Los Angeles County alone, which accounts for about one-quarter of California’s 40 million residents, reported staggering COVID-19 death tallies of 224 on Tuesday, 258 on Wednesday and 218 on Thursday, with no noted backlog elevating any of those totals, according to the local health office.
The county also added nearly 20,000 new cases Thursday, its highest daily total of the pandemic not explicitly linked to a backlog or holiday-related reporting delay.
To date, more than 2.56 million Californians have tested positive for COVID-19 and over 28,500 have died of the disease, according to CDPH.
The state recorded 50,000 new cases and 493 deaths Friday. In the past two weeks, 13.3% of diagnostic tests for COVID-19 have returned positive, breaking a nearly three-week plateau in which that percentage held mostly between 12% and 12.9%.
Vaccine rollout speeds up in California. What are the phases?
CDPH recently established another online dashboard, this one with updates on the state’s progress in distributing and administering doses of COVID-19 vaccines.
Doses of the Pfizer vaccine began arriving in California about three weeks ago, with Moderna’s product following a week behind.
It had been slow going in December and the first few days of January.
With more than 2 million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech and the Moderna vaccine delivered to county health departments and hospital systems, only a little over 488,000 of those shots had actually gone into Californians’ arms as of Wednesday’s update to the dashboard.
But by Thursday, the statewide total grew to 586,000 doses administered, according to CDPH. Acting California Health Officer Dr. Erica Pan on Wednesday stated a goal of vaccinating 1 million people in 10 days.
That works out to 100,000 a day, which the state came close to in adding roughly 98,000 between Wednesday’s and Thursday’s updates.
California remains in Phase 1a of vaccination, in which shots are being given to front-line workers who deal directly with COVID-19 patients as well as to staff and residents of vulnerable long-term care facilities like skilled nursing homes.
That includes medical first responders. Sacramento-area firefighters started getting their first shots this week. (Both Pfizer and Moderna’s vaccines are two-shot regimens, to be taken a few weeks apart.)
The current prioritization plan, per the CDPH website, is that after Phase 1a is completed, Phase 1b will proceed in two tiers.
In the first tier of Phase 1b: individuals 75 or older, plus those in additional high-risk essential work settings like education, child care, food and agriculture and emergency services.
In the second: people ages 65 through 74; those at risk of exposure working in transportation, industrial and critical manufacturing sectors; the congregate settings with high outbreak risks including the incarcerated and homeless.
Then will come Phase 1c, which includes those ages 50 through 64; people ages 16 through 49 with underlying health conditions; and those at risk of exposure in numerous other essential sectors, such as communications, financial services, government operations, utilities and more.
Wide availability — the point at which anyone (age 16 minimum) who wants a vaccine can simply schedule an appointment and get one — is still estimated to be at least a couple of months away.
1,350 dead in six-county Sacramento area
The six counties that make up the bulk of Greater Sacramento — Sacramento, El Dorado, Placer, Sutter, Yolo and Yuba counties — have recorded more than 113,000 combined positive cases and recorded at least 1,350 deaths through Friday, about a week after the death toll had ticked past 1,200.
Sacramento County has reported a total of 71,062 infections since the onset of the pandemic, and at least 955 of those residents have died of COVID-19.
The county on Wednesday confirmed 24 new confirmed deaths, the most disclosed in any single-day reporting period, along with 834 new cases. Officials added another 14 deaths and 676 cases Thursday. One week in, county health officials have disclosed 98 resident fatalities in 2021.
By date of death occurrence, December has blown past August as Sacramento County’s deadliest month of the pandemic. County health officials now report a staggering 278 deaths for the month — an average of about nine a day.
The total is still growing as deaths are confirmed from throughout the month; most of the 24 reported Wednesday came in the final week of December, but nine of them occurred between Dec. 7 and Dec. 18, according to the local health office’s tallies. All of Thursday’s 14 came from the second half of December.
At least nine Sacramento residents died of the coronavirus on Christmas.
Virus hospitalizations in Sacramento County have fluctuated some but held relatively stable, while ICU cases have generally stayed on an incline. The hospitalized total dropped from 509 on Wednesday to 499 Thursday and then 497 by Friday.
ICU patients hit an all-time high of 118 Wednesday, up from 102 Tuesday, before dipping slightly to 115 in Thursday’s update, where the total remained Friday. The available ICU bed total sank to 63, down from 66 on Thursday.
Placer County health officials have confirmed a total of 15,233 infections and 142 deaths, reporting 10 new deaths on Thursday after two days with no reported deaths. The county added 215 new cases on Wednesday and 218 on Thursday. Placer on Monday added 932 cases and seven fatalities for the four-day reporting period including New Year’s Day.
State data show Placer’s hospitalized total declining from a peak of 216 near the end of 2020, moving from 180 Wednesday and 181 on Thursday to 174 by Friday. The ICU patient count, which reached an all-time high 31 on Monday, is now at 29. But the state reported just 12 ICU beds left available in Placer, down from 23 reported Monday.
Yolo County has reported a total of 8,970 cases and 126 deaths, adding 137 cases and one new death Thursday following 154 cases and two deaths Wednesday.
State data on Friday showed Yolo with 31 virus patients in hospital beds, a new record high, including 10 in ICUs. The state continues to report 17 ICU beds available in Yolo County. Yolo’s local dashboard in recent updates has shown lower available bed counts than the state, last reported at 11 in a Thursday update.
El Dorado County has reported 6,461 positive test results and 33 deaths, updated Thursday with 69 new cases and two new deaths. The county reported two deaths Tuesday and four Wednesday, for eight total this week.
Following just four deaths from March through mid-November, at least 29 El Dorado residents died of COVID-19 between Nov. 25 and New Year’s Day, county officials report.
State health officials report 37 virus patients in El Dorado as of Friday, down from a record-high 40 on Wednesday, with 11 still in ICUs, breaking a record for the third consecutive day. The number of ICU beds available recovered from three to six.
In Sutter County, at least 6,921 people have contracted the virus and 69 have died. The county added 63 new cases and three deaths Thursday evening, following four deaths Wednesday and a record-high eight on Tuesday.
Sutter on Thursday dropped slightly to 54 residents hospitalized with COVID-19, down from a record-high 58 on Wednesday. Eleven are now in intensive care, down from 12.
Neighboring Yuba County has reported 4,383 infections and 25 dead, reporting 87 new cases and one new death Thursday. The county also added one death Wednesday, following two reported Tuesday.
Yuba said Thursday it had 35 residents hospitalized with the virus, breaking the record of 30 set just one day earlier, with six still in ICUs.
Not all patients are necessarily hospitalized in-county, but the only hospital serving the Yuba-Sutter bi-county region — Adventist-Rideout in Marysville — had 69 hospitalized virus patients as of Friday’s state data update, with ICU patients at 14. Three ICU beds are now available, down one from Thursday.
This story was originally published January 8, 2021 at 9:47 AM with the headline "California distributing more refrigerated trailers to use as morgues for COVID deaths."
