As our cases climb and our ICUs fill, I wonder if our elected officials are still oozing with desire to be separated from the Southern California region on the state’s regional COVID-19 map for stay-at-home orders.
Because either way, it looks like Santa Barbara County hospitals are heading for a showdown with the pandemic. Cottage Health infectious disease specialist Dr. David Fisk seems to think that the county reaching hospital capacity is “a distinct possibility.” He also said that Cottage Health struggled to man ICU and regular beds over the holiday weekend, “due to staff being sick from COVID.”
County Public Health Officer Dr. Henning Ansorg said that only 12 out of 72 staffed ICU beds were open in the county as of Dec. 29—16 percent capacity. But it’s really only 12 beds. The county has 631 total hospital beds with 360 in use, 121 for COVID-19, according to the Santa Barbara County Public Health Department’s Community Dashboard.
Ansorg told the Sun that 200 to 300 people per day are testing positive. Since my last column, which was a week ago, another 2,000 or more people tested positive for COVID-19 in the county.
Those 2,000 people who tested positive in the last week likely aren’t among those who were infected over the Christmas holiday weekend. We all know that the county and state COVID-19 testing and reporting process has a significant lag time.
With 10 percent of those 2,000 cases expected to end up in the hospital over the next couple of weeks, that means at least 200 people will make their way into a hospital bed due to COVID-19. Not all of those will need ICU care, but even if it’s only the expected 10 percent of hospitalized folks who need intensive care—we need at least 20 available ICU beds in the county specifically for COVID-19 patients. That doesn’t count heart attack, car accident, and stroke victims. We currently have 12.
And the Los Angeles region has nothing left. They have zero ICU beds available and zero hospital beds available. Hospitals are running low on oxygen, turning away ambulances, putting patients in gift shops (according to the LA Times). That worst case scenario we’ve been trying to avoid for most of 2020 is upon us. Whether we have pandemic fatigue or not.
What does that mean? What can we do about it?
“Please, please, please wear your mask,” Ansorg said. “Don’t gather. I know New Year’s is coming up, but it’s incredibly risky behavior.”
It’s risky not just for yourself—but for everyone in the community. As ICU beds dwindle alongside hospital staff’s ability to adequately care for patients, it leaves us with the potential for people who need care to be left without it.
The questions everyone has grappled with for most of 2020 have come down to a choice between physical health or mental and economic health for ourselves and our community. If 2020 has taught us anything, it’s that these aren’t simple decisions. They are difficult, with pros and cons that can devastate us, that have devastated us. Whatever we choose, the consequences are real for the one we decided against.
And now’s the time to make yet another choice.
The canary is rooting for Santa Barbara County. Send comments to canary@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Dec 31, 2020 – Jan 7, 2021.
