As health care workers here track the horror unfolding in New York City, where hospitals are overwhelmed with patients and deaths are increasing, they are girding for a similar surge to
hit Los Angeles.
“I was asked by a reporter today, ‘Is Los Angeles the next New York?’” Mayor Eric Garcetti of Los Angeles said last week. “And I said, ‘Sure, in the same way that New York is now the next Italy, and Italy was the next Iran, and Iran was the next China, and no matter where you live, you are the next.’”
Los Angeles County had 3,011 confirmed cases as of Tuesday, and 54 deaths, but testing is so limited that officials say they do not have a handle on how many people are actually infected, even as they believe social distancing measures have probably slowed the spread.
When a surge arrives, Los Angeles County emergency management officials say they plan to spread patients out among all the county’s acute care hospitals, meaning that where you live may not necessarily dictate where you end up. No one requiring hospitalization for Covid-19 will be turned away based on lack of insurance or inability to pay, state and federal officials have said.
Cedars-Sinai, a top research hospital, has in recent days developed its own in-house testing, and can get same-day results. M.L.K., with fewer resources, hasn’t been able to move as fast on in-house testing, and still relies on commercial labs.
As one of Los Angeles County’s largest hospitals, Cedars-Sinai, with its Level I trauma center and 886 beds, will most likely bear much of the brunt, both in terms of numbers and severity of cases.