Covid in California: The state is struggling to contain the virus

 


California was praised for acting swiftly to contain the coronavirus last spring. Now more than 31,000 people have died of the virus in the state. What went wrong?

California was the first to issue a state-wide stay-at-home order, and experts at the time predicted the pandemic would peak here in April with fewer than 2,000 lives lost.

But since November, deaths have surged by more than 1,000%. In Los Angeles alone, nearly 2,000 people died this week.

Makeshift morgues have been set up across the state, ICUs are full, oxygen is being rationed and ambulance teams have been told not to transport those unlikely to survive the night because hospitals are too full.

Disneyland, which has been closed since March, is now being turned into a massive vaccination centre, along with Dodger Stadium, in the hopes of controlling what's become a super surge.

Why is California in such dire Covid straits?

"Fatigue," says Dr Neha Nanda, of the University of Southern California's Keck School of Medicine. "It's multifaceted, but fatigue is a big reason why."

Southern California and Los Angeles are the hardest hit regions in California and the United States right now.

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