in intensive care units hospitals have delayed surgeries which are known life threatening well rob runnels is joining us live from los suns of these rob it sounds as though this biden plan really can't come soon enough for the people of los angeles. you're absolutely right rob i mean for weeks now people here have been living in this shadow of tremendous fear and distress knowing that the virus is virtually everywhere the los angeles county health department estimates that one in 3 people in this vast metropolitan area have been infected by coded 19 and the death toll is. terrible it at this point in california there have been 31000 deaths since the pandemic began more than 13000 deaths here where i am in los angeles county and that's of course fran translates into families bereaved a tremendous grieving tremendous loss tremendous. simply sadness and grief hospitals as you can imagine are really at the breaking point they have been for for weeks now. ambulances have to wait sometimes for hours at a time to. patients get them on the gurneys get them into the hospital emergency room because

infections it's like need to keep rising especially after people traveled over the holiday season rob runnels reports of california as one of the worst hit areas. covert 19 deaths in the us reached a new record peak on thursday with more than 4000 perishing from the virus los angeles is one of the epicenters of a pandemic that is raging out of control over 1000 is now everywhere and infecting more people than ever are test positivity rate is 21.6 percent countywide at our drive through and walk to the testing set in the city of los angeles it's 25.13 percent 259 people died from cova 19 in los angeles on wednesday more than all the homicides in the city last year in all more than 11000 deaths have been recorded in los angeles since the pandemic began we are truly in a crisis mode right now california's public health officials have ordered the state's badly overextended hospitals to postpone all non-essential surgeries. it's very doubt they resemble tell you that you cannot get all the room for something that you desperately need testing centers across the country are swamp with additional cas

signs in his county alone officials say the virus is killing one person every 8 minutes and as rob runnels reports patients are waiting hours for hospital beds to become available. ambulance crews are the frontline troops in los angeles is battle with covert 90 brutally long hours and the stress of trying to rescue so many sick people has put tremendous strain on emergency medical technicians like 30 year old jennifer mohler i work 24 hour shift and we leave at about 7 o'clock in the morning and we don't get back to about 630 the next morning so it takes a toll on our bodies everyone's exhausted e m t's rarely get a break or even a moment to rest it's a lot on a lot of the times we don't get lunches because there's just the many cars going now hospitals are so overstretched that ambulance crews have to wait for hours to wheel their patients into the emergency room there's simply not enough space not enough staff to take them it's typically like on all hours at the hospital you're with a patient to be admitted to get off the gurney. could be waiting anywhere from 2 to 3 hours at ambulance d