Guardian US correspondent Sam Levin visits Martin Luther King Jr community hospital in Los Angeles county, an area battling one of the worst Covid outbreaks in the US
Southern California is by many measures battling the worst Covid catastrophe in the US. In Los Angeles, one person is contracting Covid every six seconds, one person is dying every eight minutes and one in 17 residents may now be infectious. Hospitals are so overrun that officials have directed ambulances not to transport patients who have little chance of survival, and some crews are waiting eight hours to offload patients.
Sam Levin, a correspondent for Guardian US, talks to Rachel Humphreys about the crisis currently engulfing Los Angeles county, telling her about his visit to Martin Luther King Jr community hospital in south Los Angeles. Only 4% of its patients have private health insurance, and because doctors are reimbursed at low rates for care subsidised by the government, south LA has an overall shortage of 1,200 doctors. And Covid is now pushing the hospital to breaking point. Sam looks at how Covid has provided a grim illustration of how LA’s longstanding housing crisis is a public health catastrophe; the region is a leader in overcrowded housing, which has further spread the virus among vulnerable populations.