Los Angeles County hit another grim milestone today, announcing its highest single-day total of COVID-19 fatalities and pushing the death toll over 10,000, with the virus now responsible for nearly half of all daily deaths in the county.
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Lengthy wait times to offload patients at Los Angeles County’s critically overcrowded hospitals are increasingly keeping ambulances from being able to respond to other emergency calls, officials said Thursday the latest repercussion of the rampant and widespread coronavirus surge that’s walloping the region’s healthcare system.
Sometimes, as many as 10 ambulances are queued up waiting to drop off patients, and “we’ve had patients waiting in ambulance bays outside of [emergency departments] for seven hours, eight hours,” said Cathy Chidester, director of the L.A. County Emergency Medical Services Agency.
“We’re running out of ambulances, and our responses to 911 calls are getting longer and longer,” she said during a briefing Thursday.