As hospitals scramble to find enough staff and supplies to treat COVID-19 patients, county officials have told ambulance crews to limit their use of oxygen and stop bringing in certain patients with little to no chance of survival. The Los Angeles County Emergency Medical Services agency has instructed ambulance crews not to bring in most patients without a pulse if they cant be resuscitated in the field or terminally ill patients with do-not-resuscitate orders if the hospital treatment would be related to end-of-life care. Some hospitals around LA County have also had trouble finding enough portable oxygen containers and getting them refilled, according to county officials, prompting the instructions sent today to conserve it unless a patient falls below a certain oxygen saturation threshold Continue reading →

7 hr 24 min ago Los Angeles hospital official says some patients are waiting for hours in ambulances across city From CNN's Adrienne Vogt Dr. Jeffrey Smith, chief operating officer of Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, said hospitals and staff are doing their best to keep up as coronavirus infections soar. Ambulance crews in Los Angeles County were given guidance not to transport patients with little chance of survival.The order is very specific to patients whosuffered from a cardiac arrestand are unable to be revived inthe field, Smith explained. Continue reading →

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By GARY HENRY ghenry@prairiepress.net COVID-19 was the major continuing news story of 2020. The pandemic reached Illinois in early March, and the rapid spread in some parts of the state prompted Gov. JB Pritzker to close all schools March 17 and subsequently issue a stay-at-home order attempting to thwart the spread. Continue reading →

A 4-year-old upstate New York boy has died from complications of COVID-19, his mother and a family friend told The Post. Xavier M. Harris, of Utica, died of cardiac arrest Saturday one day after Christmas while hospitalized with the virus at Upstate University Hospital in Syracuse, Brandie Reid, a friend of Harris mother, Chantel Brooks, said Thursday Continue reading →