Hospital staffs stretched thin during California virus surge

An unidentified patient uses his mobile phone while receiving oxygen on a stretcher, as Los Angeles Fire Department Paramedics monitor him outside the Emergency entrance, waiting for his room at the CHA Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center in Los Angeles Friday, Dec. 18, 2020. Increasingly desperate California hospitals are being "crushed" by soaring coronavirus infections, with one Los Angeles emergency doctor predicting that rationing of care is imminent. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)

An unidentified patient receives oxygen on a stretcher, while Los Angeles Fire Department Paramedics monitor him outside the Emergency entrance, waiting for a room at the CHA Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center in Los Angeles Friday, Dec. 18, 2020. Increasingly desperate California hospitals are being "crushed" by soaring coronavirus infections, with one Los Angeles emergency doctor predicting that rationing of care is imminent. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)

Medical tents for vaccinations are set outside the Children's Hospital Los Angeles Friday, Dec. 18, 2020. Increasingly desperate California hospitals are being "crushed" by soaring coronavirus infections, with one Los Angeles emergency doctor predicting, that rationing of care is imminent. The most populous state recorded more than 41,000 new confirmed cases and 300 deaths, both among the highest single-day totals during the pandemic. In the last week, California has reported more than a quarter-million cases and 1,500 deaths. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)

FILE - This Friday, Sept. 30, 2011, file photo shows the emergency room entrance at the Henry Mayo Newhall Memorial Hospital in Santa Clarita, Calif. In hard-hit Los Angeles County, Nerissa Black, a nurse at Henry Mayo Newhall Hospital, estimated she's been averaging less than 10 minutes of care per patient every hour. That includes not just bedside care, but donning gear, writing up charts, reviewing lab results and conferring with doctors, she said. "And the patients who are coming in are more sick now than they've ever been, because a lot of people are waiting before they get care. So when they do come in, they're really, really sick," Black said Sunday, Dec. 20, 2020. (AP Photo/Jason Redmond, File)

An unidentified patient receives oxygen on a stretcher, while Los Angeles Fire Department Paramedics monitor him outside the Emergency entrance, waiting for admission at the CHA Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center in Los Angeles Friday, Dec. 18, 2020. Increasingly desperate California hospitals are being "crushed" by soaring coronavirus infections, with one Los Angeles emergency doctor predicting that rationing of care is imminent. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)

In this undated photo provided by Theresa Pirozzi shows her parents, Jerry and Shirley Pirozzi, an 85-year-old couple from Southern California who have been together for 57 years, in Oak Park, Calif. They are both in the same hospital with COVID-19 and had to wait for a couple days to get a bed. Across California, nearly 17,000 people were hospitalized with confirmed or suspected COVID-19 infections, more than double the previous peak reached in July 2020. (Theresa Pirozzi via AP)

Patients wait in line for medical evaluation next to medical tents set at the CHA Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center in Los Angeles Friday, Dec. 18, 2020. Increasingly desperate California hospitals are being "crushed" by soaring coronavirus infections, with one Los Angeles emergency doctor predicting that rationing of care is imminent. The most populous state recorded more than 41,000 new confirmed cases and 300 deaths, both among the highest single-day totals during the pandemic. In the last week, California has reported more than a quarter-million cases and 1,500 deaths. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)