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The South Coast Air Quality Management District (AQMD) temporarily suspended cremation limits in Los Angeles County on Sunday to help crematoriums keep up with a “backlog” caused by the pandemic.
The South Coast AQMD sets monthly limits for how many human remains can be cremated each month based on potential air quality impacts, according to a press release. The Los Angeles County Medical-Examiner Coroner and the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health requested that the limits be suspended in order to keep up with the excess of bodies.
“The current rate of death is more than double that of pre-pandemic years, leading to hospitals, funeral homes, and crematoriums exceeding capacity without the ability to process the backlog of cases,” South Coast AQMD said.
By LIU YINMENG in Los Angeles | China Daily Global | Updated: 2021-01-18 11:17 Share CLOSE
Rob Karlin has been working seven days a week. Whenever he can catch some rest, he does, but the job of handling the delicate details at the end of another person s life has taken a toll on him, both physically and emotionally.
The rising death toll from the coronavirus pandemic in Los Angeles County, the hardest hit region in the US, is overwhelming mortuaries and funeral homes.
In Los Angeles County, the country s most populous county, the number of novel coronavirus cases passed 1 million on Saturday. On Sunday, that number stood at 1,004,322. Someone dies every eight minutes now in LA County from COVID-19, new estimates show.
The death rate during the COVID-19 pandemic is so high in Los Angeles County that an emergency order has been issued lifting environmental limits on the number of cremations that can be performed every month.
The South Coast Air Quality Management District said in a news release on Sunday that it as lifting air-quality regulations that limit the number of cremations that can be performed in Los Angeles County.
Nurse uses social media to warn public about Covid-19 02:26 (CNN)Overflowing hospital morgues, increased 911 wait times, beds only opening when patients die. Hospitals in California, where almost all of the state s 40 million residents are living under stay-at-home orders, are seeing historic stress points.
The surge of new coronavirus cases and hospitalizations is pushing hospitals in Los Angeles County to the brink of catastrophe, a top health official there said.
To the north in Santa Clara, one doctor said: What we are seeing now, is not normal.
Every day since November 7, Covid-19 hospitalizations in California have increased.
As of Thursday, 21,449 Covid-19 patients were in hospital beds throughout the state, with more than 4,500 of those in intensive care units.