California crosses grim milestone of 2 million COVID cases
Correspondent Christina Coleman reports from Los Angeles on 'Special Report'
California ended the first weekend of the new year with more than 45,000 new cases of the novel coronavirus as hospitals in the state continue to be overwhelmed.
California on Sunday recorded 45,352 newly confirmed cases of COVID-19, bringing the state’s total to date to more than 2.3 million, per estimates from the COVID Tracking Project.
Coronavirus-related hospitalizations are continuing to increase as well, with California recording 21,510 current hospitalizations also as of Sunday.
The state has reported a steady increase in hospitalizations since before the holidays, with such numbers surpassing 100,000 for more than a month.
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"As we’ve heard, California is in a crisis mode — we are breaking records that we do not want to break," such as the number of hospitalized COVID-19 patients in the state, and the number of patients requiring ventilators or intensive care, said Dr. Thomas McGinn, the executive vice president of the Physician Enterprise at Dignity Health, during the conference just before Christmas.
"It’s been a long nine months," he said at the time when encouraging Californians to celebrate the holiday season safely. "Now is the time to be disciplined, now is the time to stick with it."
Health experts have expressed concerns over the impact a post-holiday surge could have on cases and hospitalizations, as California is still reeling from such effects linked to Thanksgiving gatherings.
The news comes after dozens of emergency room staff members at a hospital in San Jose, Calif., tested positive for coronavirus last week in an outbreak that may have been spread by an employee who wore an "air-powered costume" in the department on Christmas Day.
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Some 43 staffers in the emergency department have tested positive between Dec. 27 and Jan. 1, according to hospital officials.
Fox News' Stephen Sorace contributed to this report.