California has extended the stay-at-home orders for at least three weeks, considering the huge increase in covid cases in recent weeks. The Health and Human Services Secretary, Mark Ghaly, said that residents should celebrate the holidays virtually as much as possible.
As per the latest restrictions, restaurants will continue to offer only takeout and delivery for the next few weeks. However, stores will continue to remain open but have limited capacity as per the covid restrictions. The Department of Public Health has asked productions to slow down the productions or pause them during this time.
California To Extend Stay At Home Order For Three Weeks
Apart from these restrictions, the authorities have also issued travel restrictions. Anyone who travels out of Los Angeles County should quarantine for ten days after returning to LA county. The officials have said that these restrictions will be in place till the ICU capacity improves above 15% across the state. As of now, the ICU capacity is close to zero in California and other nearby regions. The officials have said that they are expecting a huge surge after the holiday season.
Considering the situation, the health authorities have decided to extend the stay at home orders for a few more weeks. The current orders are expiring on Jan 1, and further orders will be issued after the expiry of existing orders. The county had seen about 12000 cases every day since the last few weeks.
Several patients who visit hospitals for non-covid related health problems are also suffering a lot in this situation. They feel that they are not getting enough options to meet doctors as most of them are busy with covid patients for the last few months. Many of them postpone non-essential surgeries for many months now, and this is having an impact on their health condition.
The state saw a huge surge in new covid cases soon after the Thanksgiving holidays. Most people did not pay attention to covid guidelines during the holiday season, and this is the reason for this huge surge in cases. The authorities are expecting a further surge in the next few weeks. Fauci also has indicated that January will be worse than December. As of now, December has recorded more than 60000 deaths across the country.
The previous high was recorded in April that saw close to 60000 deaths. Even as the vaccination program continues to grow at a steady pace, there is no respite in new hospitalizations. The CDC has indicated that more than 200,000 deaths may be recorded in the next few months, and this will put a huge burden on the healthcare system in the US.
The vaccines approved by FDA are administered across the country for the last one week. As of now, close to two million people have received the vaccines across the US. The federal government had an initial target of vaccinating 20 million people before the end of December. However, they are lagging behind by a huge margin, and the health authorities are struggling hard to provide vaccines in a big way.
Doctors say that the procedure to administer the covid vaccine is slightly different from the one followed for regular vaccines. When it comes to administering other vaccines, doctors can provide vaccines to many people at once. It takes only a couple of minutes to administer the vaccines.
However, when it comes to covid vaccines, the doctors have to monitor the person receiving the vaccine for at least 15 minutes after giving the vaccine. As there are some rare chances of developing adverse reactions to the vaccines, the doctors have to be prepared to handle such emergencies. For this reason, the vaccination program is not progressing at an expected pace.