San Diego Health Official Admits Hospital Capacity Is 'Very Close' To Where It Was in 2017 Flu Season
Millions of Californians are stuck at home due to Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom’s latest draconian stay-at-home order, which cited a shortage of intensive care unit beds as a factor for triggering another emotionally and financially taxing shutdown.
But according to a public health official in one of the state’s most populated counties, the number of such beds currently occupied is relatively similar to that of a bad flu season.
“As COVID-19 case rates and hospitalizations continue to rise at an alarming pace and threaten to overwhelm the health care delivery system, California health officials today announced a Regional Stay at Home Order that will be triggered if Intensive Care Unit (ICU) capacity drops below 15 percent in a given region,” Newsom’s office stated last week in a media release.
“State health officials are tracking the state by five regions: Northern California, Bay Area, Greater Sacramento, San Joaquin Valley and Southern California. No regions currently meet this threshold but some are projected to within the next week.”
Those five regions, of course, include millions of people who are now home, losing money and being psychologically tormented by the loneliness of isolation. The order also came after the World Health Origination, a credible source for Democrats, came out strongly against using ineffective and unconstitutional lockdowns.
“We are at a tipping point in our fight against the virus and we need to take decisive action now to prevent California’s hospital system from being overwhelmed in the coming weeks,” said Newsom himself.
“By invoking a Stay at Home Order for regions where ICU capacity falls below 15 percent, we can flatten the curve as we’ve done before and reduce stress on our health care system. I’m clear-eyed that this is hard on all of us — especially our small businesses who are struggling to get by.”
It’s easy for Newsom to talk about how to “flatten the curve” and to even claim he, too, is suffering. But Newsom has been seen out enjoying meals with company at the exclusive French Laundry restaurant in Yountville, California, according to KTTV-TV.
EXCLUSIVE: We’ve obtained photos of Governor Gavin Newsom at the Napa dinner party he’s in hot water over. The photos call into question just how outdoors the dinner was. A witness who took photos tells us his group was so loud, the sliding doors had to be closed. 10pm on @FOXLA pic.twitter.com/gtOVEwa864
— Bill Melugin (@BillFOXLA) November 18, 2020
Meanwhile, residents of the Golden State who aren’t elected Democrats are being asked to sacrifice their liberties to preserve ICU beds in some hospitals that, according to a report, have historically been occupied at about the same frequency which they are now.
That’s the case in San Diego County at least. Thanks to some intrepid reporting from San Diego’s KUSI-TV, we know that despite the fear mongering from public health officials, the situation with that county’s hospital beds is on par with a season with a whole lot of influenza cases.
KUSI-TV reported that it reached out last week to Dr. Wilma Wooten, who is the county’s public health officer, to inquire about what pre-pandemic hospital capacity looked like. It’s a valid question, considering that prior to this year, the availability of ICU beds wasn’t much of a topic for breaking news.
Newsom nor his predecessor, former Democratic California Gov. Jerry Brown, ever asked people to stay home, lose their livelihoods and become dependent on drugs and/or alcohol to stave off isolation during serious flu seasons.
Now, millions are at home in California’s major population centers, and KUSI-TV, to their credit, asked a serious question. The outlet’s reporters wanted to know what hospital capacity looks like in a given year in San Diego, where they’ve been told the situation is dire, so they asked Wooten.
Wooten apparently dodged that question last Saturday. But, the outlet persisted throughout the week and got an answer from the San Diego County Health official on Wednesday.
During a San Diego County Health briefing, Wooten was available to answer questions, so KUSI-TV reporter Hunter Sowards asked Wooten to compare the current ICU bed capacity to those of this time last year.
“I don’t have before me right now any data to compare where we were at the same time last year,” Wooten said.
But Wooten then gave the outlet some very interesting information. She told KUSI-TV the current capacity is “very close” to what it looked like during the nasty 2017-2018 flu season.
That answer should outrage everyone currently under the thumb of California’s authoritarian leadership.
Not to diminish the threat the coronavirus poses to those who might be vulnerable to complications from contracting it, but that answer makes a mockery of the state’s handling of the pandemic. Why are healthy people being told to stay at home and swallow the bitter pill of bankruptcy and loneliness for a disease which is more or less, per Wooten’s information about hospital capacity, on par with a bad flu season?
Californians, and many other Americans, have been asked all year long to be good citizens and to mask up, stay home and go broke. In the meantime, none of those measures seem to be working, and the end result is the same, at least in San Diego County.
ICU bed numbers are being used to put more lockdowns into effect, which will likely result in the permanent closures of more small businesses, and for what?
The virus has sadly claimed lives through both infections and the unfortunate side effects of lockdowns. But the data from one of the state’s largest health departments is showing that the coronavirus isn’t actually pushing hospitals to the brink, which was, per Newsom, the primary reason for the new lockdowns.
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