California hospital sets up ‘COVID pods’ and treats patients in hallways

Southern California and the San Joaquin Valley reportedly have no ICU space. Hospitals are creating special COVID-19 wards to handle the influx. There are plans now for how to ration care. St. Mary’s Medical Center in Apple Valley invited Washington Post reporters inside to document what’s happening.

“Every day we’re running at 200, 250% capacity. That includes the emergency department, the ICU, all of the inpatient units. We have well over double the number of patients that we were built to house,” Randy Loveless, the interim director of St. Mary’s emergency department, told the Washington Post.