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Source: https://www.latimes.com/california/...rural-california-covid-surge-vaccinations-lag
Mortuaries fill, hospitals clog in rural California towns with low vaccination rates
By Hailey Branson-PottsStaff Writer
Aug. 28, 2021 6 AM PT
In Crescent City, the mortuary is filled beyond capacity and needs a refrigerated truck to hold bodies. The small hospital is so full that it is lining up helicopters to fly COVID-19 patients out of remote Del Norte County. So many employees are out with coronavirus infections that businesses have closed.
Deaths in Del Norte County from COVID-19 have more than doubled in recent weeks, from 10 on Aug. 15 to 22 on Friday. Four people died in a single day, officials said.
A year and a half into the pandemic — and eight months since highly effective vaccines became available — COVID-19 is surging across rural California, where inoculation rates are low, more intensely than it ever has before.
Del Norte County health officials believe there is an undercount in the number of people who have died from COVID-19 and that some never made it to the hospital. The coroner is investigating.
“This has been our worst fear,” State Sen. Mike McGuire (D-Healdsburg), who represents seven counties stretching from Marin to Del Norte, told The Times. “We saw significant surges in urban areas in this state early on. Now, rural California is the epicenter for this pandemic.”
Health officials and hospital administrators have long feared a coronavirus surge in vast, sparsely populated Northern California, where there was already a shortage of doctors and where an emergency from trauma or illness can mean an hours-long drive to the nearest medical facility.
In August, nine Northern California counties have seen more patients hospitalized with COVID-19 than at any other point in the pandemic: Amador, Del Norte, Humboldt, Lake, Mendocino, Placer, Plumas, Shasta and Tuolumne. ...
Mortuaries fill, hospitals clog in rural California towns with low vaccination rates
By Hailey Branson-PottsStaff Writer
Aug. 28, 2021 6 AM PT
In Crescent City, the mortuary is filled beyond capacity and needs a refrigerated truck to hold bodies. The small hospital is so full that it is lining up helicopters to fly COVID-19 patients out of remote Del Norte County. So many employees are out with coronavirus infections that businesses have closed.
Deaths in Del Norte County from COVID-19 have more than doubled in recent weeks, from 10 on Aug. 15 to 22 on Friday. Four people died in a single day, officials said.
A year and a half into the pandemic — and eight months since highly effective vaccines became available — COVID-19 is surging across rural California, where inoculation rates are low, more intensely than it ever has before.
Del Norte County health officials believe there is an undercount in the number of people who have died from COVID-19 and that some never made it to the hospital. The coroner is investigating.
“This has been our worst fear,” State Sen. Mike McGuire (D-Healdsburg), who represents seven counties stretching from Marin to Del Norte, told The Times. “We saw significant surges in urban areas in this state early on. Now, rural California is the epicenter for this pandemic.”
Health officials and hospital administrators have long feared a coronavirus surge in vast, sparsely populated Northern California, where there was already a shortage of doctors and where an emergency from trauma or illness can mean an hours-long drive to the nearest medical facility.
In August, nine Northern California counties have seen more patients hospitalized with COVID-19 than at any other point in the pandemic: Amador, Del Norte, Humboldt, Lake, Mendocino, Placer, Plumas, Shasta and Tuolumne. ...