In California: L.A. County hospitals rationing care; vaccine rollout proves slow

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In California brings you top Golden State stories and commentary from across the USA TODAY Network and beyond. Get it free, straight to your inbox.

Overwhelmed L.A. County hospitals are now rationing care

Los Angeles County, the nation's epicenter for the coronavirus pandemic, hit another grim milestone Tuesday, exceeding 11,000 COVID-19 deaths, the L.A. Times reported. The county has reported nearly 1,300 deaths since Dec. 30, according to health officials, including 237 on Tuesday, according to data compiled by The Times.

Over the past week, Los Angeles County averaged 183 COVID-19 deaths a day — the equivalent of one every eight minutes — and 13,500 new coronavirus infections a day, a count expected to grow with the reopening of testing sites after the holidays. The county’s cumulative case count now tops 841,000.

As COVID-19 continues to overwhelm Los Angeles County hospitals, officials are trying to ration medical supplies and hospital space. 

The Los Angeles Emergency Medical Services Agency has issued two memos instructing emergency responders to limit the use of supplemental oxygen and not transport patients who cannot be revived in the field.

"Given the acute need to conserve oxygen, effective immediately, EMS should only administer supplemental oxygen to patients with oxygen saturation below 90%," one memo said. Oxygen saturation at that threshold and above allows for sufficient blood flow in most patients, the memo said.

Adults experiencing cardiac arrest should not be transported to the hospital if they cannot be resuscitated in the field, according to the other memo. Patients whose hearts have stopped and, despite attempts to resuscitate, show no sign of breathing or movement, should be determined dead at the scene and should not be transported, the memo said.

Los Angeles County isn't alone with its surging patient load. Orange, San Bernardino and Riverside counties each have more than 1,500 hospitalized COVID-19 patients and fewer than a hundred ICU beds available, according to state data. 

$4 billion economic plan unveiled

California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Tuesday proposed a $4 billion spending plan he says will create jobs and help small businesses recover from the economic downturn brought on by the coronavirus pandemic, Associated Press reported.

Close to half of that money — $1.5 billion — would help people purchase electric cars and build the charging stations necessary for drivers to use them.

Small businesses would get $575 million. The money would pay for grants of up to $25,000 each to small business owners, with priority given to areas and industries most affected by the pandemic. That money includes $25 million for small museums and art galleries that have been forced to close during the pandemic. Newsom and the state Legislature have already given $500 million to this program, so this proposal would make more than $1 billion available.

Newsom also wants to give $430 million worth of tax credits to businesses that stay in California and create full-time jobs.

The proposal would also extend a tax credit for small businesses. Last year, Newsom signed a law that promised to give small business owners a tax break if they rehired workers they had to lay off or furlough because of the pandemic. Business owners got a $1,000 credit on their state tax bill for the net increase of each new worker between July 1 and Dec. 1. Newsom’s proposal would spend $100 million to extend that program, but offered no further details.

Other benefits include another $50 million for a program that offers up to $100,000 in loans to small businesses, $100 million to expand a sales tax exemption to reduce the cost of manufacturing equipment, and a proposal Newsom says would mitigate the effects of a cap of a federal income tax deduction.

Newsom also said he wants to waive $70.6 million in various fees imposed on businesses most impacted by the pandemic — barbers, cosmetologists, manicurists, bars and restaurants. 

Only 1% of Californians have been vaccinated

Distribution hiccups and logistical challenges have slowed the initial coronavirus vaccine rollout in California. So far only about 1% of California’s 40 million residents have been vaccinated, Newsom said. 

The 454,000 doses of vaccine that have been administered in California represent just a third of the more than nearly 1.3 million received in the state so far, according to the California Department of Public Health. 

California is working to expand the list of sites where the vaccine can be distributed to include pharmacies, clinics and dental offices. Officials are also completing a survey of health care workers to find out how many of them do not want to take the vaccine, in response to anecdotal evidence that some are refusing it. 

While the state wants to make sure no one is jumping ahead in the line, Newsom said he wants to give providers the flexibility to distribute doses to people not on the priority list if doses are at risk of going to waste.

Quick action saves vaccines from spoiling

The Adventist Health Ukiah Valley Medical Center in Mendocino County quickly vaccinated 850 people after a power outage Monday left the refrigerator at the facility without power. 

By the time hospital officials realized the freezer had malfunctioned, they had 2.5 hours to distribute the Moderna COVID-19 vaccines, which have a shelf life of 12 hours at room temperature, Cici Winiger, Adventist Health spokeswoman, told the Ukiah Daily Journal.

The hospital sent 200 doses to Mendocino County Public Health that were dispensed to county workers, including sheriff’s deputies and jail staff. Jail inmates also received the vaccine, Winiger said.

Officials also sent 80 vaccines to nursing homes. The rest were distributed on a first-come, first-served basis.

Should police social media be reviewed for bias?

California police agencies should routinely review officers’ social media, cellphones and computers for racist, bigoted or other offensive content that contributes to disproportionate police stops of Black people, the Racial and Identity Profiling Advisory Board said this week.

The controversial recommendation comes from community and law enforcement representatives who analyzed nearly 4 million vehicle and pedestrian stops by California’s 15 largest law enforcement agencies in 2019.

People who were perceived as Black were more than twice as likely to be stopped as their percentage of the population would suggest, the board said in its fourth annual report.

Black people also had the highest proportion of their stops (21%) for reasonable suspicion, while the most common reason for stops of people of all races was traffic violations. Black people were searched at 2.5 times the rate of people perceived as white.

And the odds were 1.45 times greater that someone perceived as Black had force used against them during a traffic stop compared to someone perceived as white. The odds were 1.18 times greater for people perceived as Latino.

Reform efforts have often focused on increasing training to make officers aware of how their implicit, or unconscious, bias may affect their interactions. Starting this year, a new law also requires agencies to screen job applicants for implicit and explicit biases.

Explicitly racist or bigoted social media posts by some law enforcement officers appear to be a widespread problem nationwide, the board said, citing a study by the Plain View Project that examined the Facebook accounts of 2,900 active and 600 retired officers in eight departments across the country.

In California, current and former San Jose Police Department officers were found to have shared racist Facebook posts. Other agencies, including the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and San Francisco Police Department, have been involved in similar issues.

In first, Black men lead two California public safety panels

The first Black lawmakers to lead the California Legislature’s two public safety committees at the same time promised Tuesday to bring “radical change” to improve treatment of Blacks and Latinos by law enforcement.

Sen. Steve Bradford and Assemblyman Reggie Jones-Sawyer, both Democrats from Los Angeles, spoke in sometimes intensely personal terms arising from their own experiences while previewing what they hope to accomplish together.

Jones-Sawyer has led the Assembly committee since 2016 and literally had a target placed on his head by the state prison guards’ union in a campaign ad in the last election.

Bradford is the only African American in the state Senate. He takes over the committee from Sen. Nancy Skinner, a white woman from the liberal enclave of Berkeley whom both men credited with long promoting a multi-racial push for reforms.

When the state Legislature reconvenes next week, the two lawmakers are planning to revive stalled bills that would allow regulators to end the careers of bad officers, open more police records to public scrutiny, strip officers of some immunity from damages in lawsuits, and require officers to intervene if they see unjustified uses of force by colleagues.

Jones-Sawyer also is seeking to boost the age and education requirements for rookie police officers.

Kevin Faulconer eyes governor's office

Former San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer has established a political committee to begin raising money for a possible run for governor.

In a brief statement on Twitter, the moderate Republican who served two terms in the Democratic-leaning city said there is “no better way to ring in the new year than taking the first step in turning around California.”

Faulconer stopped short of formally declaring his candidacy, Associated Press reported, but the formation of the committee will allow him to begin collecting checks to help finance a potential campaign. In a tweet two days ago, he said, “We need a new governor. Jobs are leaving, homelessness is skyrocketing.”

A Republican hasn’t won a statewide election in the heavily Democratic state since 2006, and registered Democrats outnumber Republicans in California by nearly 2 to 1.

COVID-19 postpones Grammys

The Grammy Awards have been postponed.

Music's biggest awards show, which had been scheduled for Jan. 31 in Los Angeles, will no longer take place this month because of rising COVID-19 cases in California.

The Recording Academy now aims to hold a ceremony in March, according to Associated Press.

Tanya Roberts dies (really)

Tanya Roberts, who starred in the 1985 James Bond film "A View to A Kill," as well as classic TV series "Charlie's Angels" and "That '70s Show," died Monday, a day after her publicist Mike Pingel incorrectly announced the actress' death.

Roberts' longtime partner Lance O'Brien told USA TODAY on Tuesday that the actress died Monday night.

"I can confirm Tanya Roberts passed away last night at 9:30 p.m.," Pingel told USA TODAY on Tuesday. He said the actress died at Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles, where she was taken when she collapsed after walking her dogs on Christmas Eve.

Pingel had previously announced Roberts died Sunday night. But O'Brien learned earlier Monday that Roberts was still alive while in the middle of an interview with "Inside Edition," according to a video on the show's official YouTube page. 

Multiple media outlets, including USA TODAY, reported Roberts' death Sunday. 

That's all for this Tuesday. We'll be back in your inbox tomorrow with more headlines from the Golden State.

In California is a roundup of news from across USA Today network newsrooms. Also contributing: the Associated Press and Ukiah Daily Journal.