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Rural California hospital overwhelmed by Covid
Apple Valley (United States) (AFP) - As Covid-19 tears through southern California, small hospitals in rural towns like Apple Valley have been overwhelmed, with coronavirus patients crammed into hallways, makeshift ICU beds and even the pediatric ward. When AFP visited St Mary hospital in this desert town of 70,000 people this week, palliative care supervisor Kari McGuire said her team were seeing "astronomical numbers of patients who are dying" from the novel coronavirus. "It's most definitely the darkest period of my entire career. Most definitely," she said, fighting back tears as she recal...
AFP
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'So much death': LA hospital reels at center of Covid storm
Los Angeles (AFP) - Deep within a South Los Angeles hospital, a row of elderly Hispanic men lay hooked up to ventilators -- their bodies resting in induced comas -- while nurses clad in spacesuit-style respirators checked their patients' bleeping monitors in the otherwise eerie silence. The intensive care unit in one of the city's poorest districts is well-accustomed to death, but with Los Angeles now at the heart of the United States's Covid-19 pandemic, medics say they have never seen anything on this scale. "It's hard. We're human, and we're trying our best," said nurse Vanessa Arias. "But ...
AFP
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'So much death': LA hospital reels at center of Covid storm
Los Angeles (AFP) - Deep within a South Los Angeles hospital, a row of elderly Hispanic men lay hooked up to ventilators -- their bodies resting in induced comas -- while nurses clad in spacesuit-style respirators checked their patients' bleeping monitors in the otherwise eerie silence. The intensive care unit in one of the city's poorest districts is well-accustomed to death, but with Los Angeles now at the heart of the United States's Covid-19 pandemic, medics say they have never seen anything on this scale. "It's hard. We're human, and we're trying our best," said nurse Vanessa Arias. "But ...
AFP
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California orders hospitals to take Covid transfer patients
Los Angeles (AFP) - California hospitals were ordered to accept Covid-19 patients from elsewhere in the hard-hit state if they have capacity, and to postpone non-critical surgeries, as record coronavirus cases continued to surge Wednesday. Health officials are scrambling to cope with a massive influx of coronavirus patients in California, which has recorded more than twice as many new cases as any other US state in the past week. Intensive care units in the populous southern part of the state -- including Los Angeles -- and the central San Joaquin Valley are stretched beyond capacity, though s...
AFP
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Inflatable Xmas costume probed over virus outbreak at US hospital
Washington (AFP) - A California hospital was Monday investigating if an inflatable costume worn by an emergency department employee on Christmas Day might have caused a coronavirus outbreak that infected dozens of people and killed one. At least 44 staff members at Kaiser Permanente in San Jose tested positive for Covid-19 over the past week, and one died as a result of complications from the disease, according to a hospital spokesperson. The hospital is now probing whether an air-powered Christmas tree costume, which had big eyes, a smile, and a bright red nose may have fanned the spread of v...
AFP
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California orders body bags as intensive care swamped by Covid
Los Angeles (AFP) - California officials ordered thousands of extra body bags Tuesday as record coronavirus cases left Los Angeles with fewer than 100 intensive care beds available for a county of 10 million people. The situation has grown severe across southern parts of California, which was praised for its response at the start of the pandemic in spring, but which has seen Covid-related hospital admissions soar sixfold since mid-October. Beyond Los Angeles, health authorities have sounded the alarm in nearby Ventura and Riverside counties, operating with 99 and 100 percent of ICU capacity u...
AFP
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Hospital staff 'truly exhausted,' says Texas doctor in viral hug photo
Houston (AFP) - Through multiple masks, a face shield and a protective suit he likens to those worn by astronauts, Dr Joseph Varon bends over his Covid-19 patient and waves into the phone she is holding up. At the other end of the video call, several loved ones express their delight at seeing the man who helped save Gloria Garcia from the disease that has killed more than 278,000 people in the US and counting. Varon, the chief of staff at United Memorial, a small hospital that primarily treats minority patients in a low-income north Houston neighborhood, made headlines when a photo of him hug...
AFP
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US Jewish doctor tweets on treating Covid patient with Nazi tattoos
Los Angeles (AFP) - A Jewish doctor working with coronavirus patients in California shared his shock about the moment he saw neo-Nazi tattoos on the body of a severely ill man he was treating. As his team - which included a Black nurse and a respiratory specialist of Asian descent -- prepared the man to be intubated Taylor Nichols said on Twitter he spotted the Nazi tattoos. "The swastika stood out boldly on his chest. SS tattoos and other insignia that had previously been covered by his shirt were now obvious to the room," he tweeted Monday. "We all saw. The symbols of hate on his body outwar...
AFP
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US authorities warn of 'imminent' cyber threat to hospitals
Washington (AFP) - US security authorities warned Wednesday of an "imminent cybercrime threat" to hospitals and healthcare providers, urging them to increase their protection.An advisory released by the FBI and two other government agencies said they had "credible information" that hackers were targeting the healthcare sector using malware, "often leading to ransomware attacks, data theft, and the disruption of healthcare services."The threat comes as US hospitals grapple with rising numbers of coronavirus cases, during a pandemic which has so far killed more than 226,000 people in the country...
AFP
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Trump flies back to White House over cheering fans
Bethesda (United States) (AFP) - After days of hush around the military hospital where he was being treated for Covid-19, President Donald Trump emerged to the clatter of helicopter rotor blades and the cries of supporters chanting, "Trump, Trump, Trump."Some had waited all day to see him and were hoping for another drive-by in his armoured limo, as he had done the day before. Nevertheless, they were happy when he boarded Marine One and flew off over the crowd gathered in front of Walter Reed military hospital in Bethesda, just outside Washington, DC. "I'm not disappointed based on the securit...
AFP