State Health and Human Services Secretary Dr. The cutbacks come as the state faces a projected $22.5 billion deficit, according to Newsom’s proposal.

Last year’s budget included $1.8 billion for COVID-19 emergency response and the state’s long-term strategy, while the proposed budget for the upcoming fiscal year is only $176.6 million. Gavin Newsom released his January budget proposal, which moves $614 million in unspent COVID-19 response funds to the state’s general fund and drastically reduced the amount of pandemic money for the upcoming year. The closures come just one week after Gov. mark ghaly, State Health and Human Services Secretary “We learned a lot through this COVID response, and we need to make sure we don’t lose those gains.” dr. The state of emergency, which has provided extra funding and staffing flexibilities at medical facilities, is slated to end on the last day of February. The state health department would only answer emailed questions and did not attribute the statement to a person. “A final plan for demobilizing the remaining sites is being prepared, but we have not set a completion date,” an unidentified department spokesperson said in a statement. Another branch of the company signed an additional $47 million contract to design a data management system for COVID-19 test results. The health care giant has at least four contracts, under its former name Logistics Health, with the state totalling $1.05 billion to provide testing and vaccination services though it has been criticized in the past for its bumpy rollout. OptumServe, a health care operations company, runs 123 testing and treatment sites along with four vaccination clinics through state contracts. Forty-four OptumServe sites will be shuttered this week, and 48 mobile “mini-buses” will begin closing in two weeks, according to the California Department of Public Health. Sites that are operating under 50% capacity are scheduled to close before the end of January. The number of those patients in intensive care was 621, a slight reduction from 622 a day earlier.As the state prepares to end the state of emergency, those sites with less demand will close first.Ĭalifornia is preparing to close dozens of state-run COVID-19 testing and treatment sites ahead of the planned end of the state of emergency in February. Just as increases in hospitalizations lag increases in case counts by about 2-3 weeks, deaths generally lag changes in hospitalizations by another 2 weeks.

Prior to the weekend, the number of deaths had risen fourfold, from 15 on Tuesday to 65 Friday. The hospitalizations surge is expected to continue until it hits a new record of 13,507 on February 2.Īnother 27 virus-related deaths were also reported Monday, a number county health officials indicate was incomplete due to the aforementioned reporting delays. That number has jumped an additional 800 daily cases in the past week, reaching a level nearly six times above what it was just one month ago.Īccording to California’s CatCAT ensemble forecasting model, the county is set eclipse its all-time Covid hospitalizations record of 7,926 this week. The number of Covid-positive patients in Los Angeles County hospitals inched upward again today to 4,564. Health officials have been raising concerns about the current surge in cases impacting a hospital system already strained by staffing shortages, which have been further exacerbated by Covid infections among health care professionals. Huntington Beach Officials Working To Ban Mask And Covid Vaccine Mandates

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