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California coronavirus forecast darkens after holiday celebrations

Gov. Gavin Newsom said California could see “a surge on top of a surge arguably on top of a surge” after the holidays.

SACRAMENTO, Calif — Gov. Gavin Newsom today recapped California’s dire COVID-19 condition, painting a bleak picture for this holiday season. 

In the last 24 hours, more than 33,000 people in the state had tested positive for COVID-19. In what is now the epicenter of the pandemic, Los Angeles County, close to 600 people are testing positive every hour.  

On Christmas Eve, health officials in Los Angeles County reported that one person was dying from COVID-19 every 10 minutes. About 96% of hospitals in Los Angeles couldn’t take ambulance patients over the weekend and instead were diverting patients to other parts of the region, the governor said. 

Citing the skyrocketing cases and overwhelmed hospitals, the governor signaled the state will likely extend its stay-at-home order. 

The original three-week order, which went into effect when regions dipped below 15% capacity in hospital intensive care units, called for some non-essential businesses to shut down and further restricted indoor activity for others. It had been set to expire soon in Southern California and the San Joaquin Valley.

And things are likely to become worse before they get better. The governor said California could see “a surge on top of a surge arguably on top of a surge as it relates to the holiday movement and the travel that we’ve experienced all across this country.”

Here’s the landscape the governor laid out for Californians in this last week of the year:

Stretched hospital capacity

As of today, California had tallied 24,824 deaths and about 2.1 million positive cases. For months, California managed to have fewer than the recommended 5% of coronavirus tests coming back positive. Today that positivity rate has soared to about 12%. 

The intensity of the situation is felt most acutely in hospitals — more than 20,000 Californians were in the hospital with COVID-19 on Sunday, according to the state’s dashboard.

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