In Los Angeles County, the average number of available hospital beds slipped to its lowest level since the pandemic began. A UC San Diego hospital in La Jolla made plans to convert conference rooms into patient areas and ease the expected crunch, while overflow tents were put into use outside the emergency department of a facility in nearby La Mesa.
Up and down California, the scenes of hospital overcrowding eerily evoke the early days of COVID-19’s arrival. To some of the people trying to provide care for waves of patients during this most recent surge, that is a huge part of the problem.
