San Francisco on track to run out of ICU beds the day after Christmas
San Francisco on track to run out of ICU beds the day after Christmas
In about a month's time the number of people testing positive for COVID-19 in San Francisco has jumped from 34 a day to 140 on average. KTVU's Christien Kafton reports on how the city is preparing for an influx of patients who need ICU beds.
SAN FRANCISCO - Here in the Bay Area public health officials are already scrambling to take care of the expected flood of COVID-19 patients in the coming weeks. Health leaders are saying the situation is dire.
Coronavirus rates are climbing quickly. To give you a sense, at the end of October, about 34 people were testing COVID positive in San Francisco per day. Now that number is at 140 positive tests every day, according to public health officials.
In just a matter of weeks, San Francisco and the rest of the Bay Area is expected to reach capacity for its intensive care unit (ICU) system .
The Bay Area has seen a slower rate of COVID infection and hospitalizations than other regions in the state, but public health officials say it's just a matter of time before the crisis reaches a critical tipping point, with hospitals running out of their ICU beds.
"In San Francisco, if things continue at the same trajectory, we are scheduled to run out of those all-important Intensive Care Unit beds -- those ICU beds that literally keep people alive -- we're scheduled to run out of those December 26th," said Dr. Grant Colfax from San Francisco's Department of Public Health.
San Francisco's Director of Public Health says the governor's plan, breaking the state down into five regions, makes sense.
What happens in Bay Area counties will inevitably impact the other surrounding counties.
"The region is interconnected," said Dr. Colfax. "So, essentially the worst off county, we're collectively as bad as the worst off county. So, I think we need to know that, and our hospital systems are interconnected as well."
Overtaxed health systems will mean that non-COVID patients will be at risk as well.
"There's very much a domino effect here," said Dr. Colfax. "It's not just like hospitals can just focus on COVID. We know hospitals have to focus on all sorts of other things."
Health officials are still working to clarify the details on the governor's plans, including how a vaccine will be distributed locally.
"Yes there's light at the end of the tunnel with regard to vaccines but we need to ensure that we're all here for a vaccine," said Dr. Colfax.
The Bay Area is already worse off than the two previous surges we saw earlier this year.
One final ominous detail: Dr. Colfax said the surge the region is currently seeing does not include a possible surge from all the people who traveled throughout the state or from state to state over the Thanksgiving holiday.
We should start seeing the impact from that, sometime next week, on top of the already surging COVID rates.