Smaller, shorter, safer: Riverside County health officials concerned about Thanksgiving gatherings during an increase in coronavirus cases
Riverside County health officials are concerned about the increase in coronavirus cases ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday.
Kim Saruwatari, director of Riverside County Public Health said, “These numbers represent people. They represent our family members, our neighbors, our colleagues.” In one month, officials said Riverside County hospitalizations went from 161 to 400.
Dr. Geoffrey Leung, with RUHS-Medical Center, said, “If the current trend continues, we could be seeing 2-3 times as many COVID hospitalizations and ICU cases this time in December.”
Chair V. Manuel Perez, Fourth District Supervisor wants people to make their Thanksgivings smaller, shorter, and safer. He said people should not mix multiple households, they should keep gatherings to under two hours, and practice virus safety.
Geoffrey said, “Many hospitals are in the initial stages of their surge plans in which they are adding teams, creating additional space for COVID patients and looking at additional staffing for the next several weeks.”
We also spoke with JFK Memorial Hospital in Indio. Dr. Saeed Eskandari is an Internal Medicine physician at JFK Memorial Hospital. He said “We did a lot of trouble shooting and we are very well prepared as far as staffing is concerned, COVID beds, our ICU.” No hospital in the county is at capacity as of November 24th. but there's always a limit to how many patients a hospital can take. Eskandari added, “We want everyone to get well and go home to their families but there is a real ugly truth to COVID and people need to remember that.”
You can watch the video in the player below
Public Health press conference 112420 from RUHS Public Health on Vimeo.
MORE: 1 in 3 parents say family holiday gatherings worth the risk of Covid-19
Riverside County surpasses 1 million tests & 80,000 total cases
On Tuesday, Riverside County reported 1,569 new cases since Wednesday. This brings the total number of cases to 80,011.
The Coachella Valley reported 222 cases over the weekend (17,931 total cases).
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