California’s deadliest day yet for COVID-19: More than 670 fatalities
LA TimesA dozen refrigerated storage containers are lined up in the parking lot at the Los Angeles County coroner’s complex. “But we find ourselves today, in terms of the numbers, at a point where we are standing on a beach and watching a tsunami approach.” With hospital morgues overcrowded and overwhelmed funeral homes forced to turn families away, the L.A. County coroner’s office is accelerating efforts to temporarily store corpses. On Monday, six men and women from the California National Guard arrived to assist county workers in the loading of bodies from hospital morgues into one of 12 refrigerated storage units at the L.A. County Department of Medical Examiner-Coroner, said Sarah Ardalani, a spokeswoman with the coroner’s office. “We have the power to get this virus under control if we choose to do that, and it’s really up to us,” Dr. Christina Ghaly, the county’s director of health services, said this week. “We can’t stress enough that we have to, at this point, find our way to actually change the trajectory we’re on,” Barbara Ferrer, L.A. County’s public health director, said.