'This is a war': the coronavirus disaster in California's hardest-hit - and poorest - county

[marmar]

'This is a war': the coronavirus disaster in California's hardest-hit – and poorest – county
About 17 patients are airlifted out of Imperial county every day, as the virus takes a devastating toll on Latino residents

Mario Koran
Mon 13 Jul 2020 06.00 EDTLast modified on Mon 13 Jul 2020 06.21 EDT


(Guardian UK) In southern California’s Imperial county, the chuff-chuff of spinning helicopter blades has become a familiar noise.

It’s the sound of coronavirus patients being airlifted out – 15 to 17 a day, on average. This remote region along the US-Mexico border is under siege from Covid-19, and hospitals are stretched to the brink.

Imperial county, population 181,000, is experiencing California’s worst outbreak, according to several public health metrics.

Over the last 14 days, the county’s infection rate was more than 588 per 100,000 people – by far the highest in the state. As of Friday, the county had recorded 7,759 coronavirus cases and 132 fatalities.

Adolphe Edward, the CEO for El Centro regional medical center, one of only two hospitals in the county, is reminded of medical operations he has overseen in Turkey, Oman and United Arab Emirates. More than 500 patients have already been transported out of the county to other medical facilities, and still the cases keep coming. .............(more)

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jul/13/coronavirus-imperial-county-california-latino

[hunter]

1. Crowded air conditioned housing and transportation has got to play a part in this.

If you've got four people sleeping in a small room, breathing air recirculated by an old window air conditioner, and one gets sick...

Transportation is also crowded. Workers are transported to and from the fields sitting shoulder-to-shoulder in old buses and vans, or they carpool together in small cars.

"Social distancing" is impossible.

[appalachiablue]

2. K/R. It is a war, on people and the environment that must be stopped.

[ck4829]

3. K&R