The influx of coronavirus patients has pushed the California health care system to the brink of collapse, and funeral homes say they can't cope with the load – many times more rituals are performed every day than before the pandemic began.
“I have been working in the funeral industry for 40 years, and I never thought in my life that this could happen, that I would have to tell my family, 'No, we cannot take your family member,'” said Magda Maldonado, owner of a funeral bureau in Los Angeles. …
According to her, in order to somehow cope with the load, the agency was forced to rent additional refrigerators, and also to agree with hospitals to postpone the collection of bodies for one or two days.
The California Association of Funeral Homes said that a burial or cremation process (including obtaining a death certificate), which previously took no more than two days, can now take a week or more.
The situation is no better for paramedics – due to the extreme workload of hospitals with patients with respiratory failure, ambulance workers were forbidden to give oxygen to patients with oxygen saturation above 90%.
Hundreds of cars lined up for coronavirus testing in Los Angeles, USA.
Hundreds of cars lined up for coronavirus testing in Los Angeles, USA.
The oxygen situation is so dire that at least five Los Angeles County hospitals have declared that they will soon be unable to provide care to ambulance patients, and the hospitals themselves are approaching “internal disaster.”
Paramedics working on ambulances in Los Angeles have been ordered not to take patients with a low chance of survival to hospitals. These will include those who have stopped heart, no pulse and no breathing.
Arriving in California and New York must self-isolate for 2 weeks. It is impossible to leave the airports without special registration, to which the forces of the National Guard are involved.
In New York, the fine for violating quarantine is $ 10,000. The self-isolation period can only be shortened if a PCR test for COVID-19 was done before departure. Its result must be negative. In this case, it is necessary to pass another test already in New York. And if it also turns out to be negative, then self-isolation can be stopped.
However, in New York, it is now extremely difficult and expensive to pass such a test: an electronic enrollment has been introduced in clinics and there are no free places. If, nevertheless, the analysis can be passed, then its results will have to be expected from 7 to 14 days. In private collection points, the cost of a PCR test is $ 250. If you also need a paper certificate with the test results for a trip abroad, then such a kit will cost $ 400.
