California

The Washington Post

Ambulance crews in Los Angeles County, population 10 million, have been told to ration oxygen and to stop transporting patients with low survival chances in a desperate effort to relieve the region's overwhelmed medical system. “Many hospitals have reached a point of crisis and are having to make very tough decisions about patient care,” county health services Director Christina Ghaly said at a news conference Monday.

Ghaly said she expects even worse days ahead. Los Angeles's emergency rooms and ICUs are flooded with people who caught the coronavirus over Thanksgiving; the Christmas surge has not yet arrived. And while the situation in California is particularly bad, hospitalizations across the nation are hitting record highs.