Coronavirus in rural America (Part CLVIII): California's Central Valley faces perpetual surge

Here's an excerpt from Hailey Branson-Potts' story for the Los Angeles Times, "As infections rise, the San Joaquin Valley becomes the land of the eternal COVID surge":   

In Fresno County, understaffed hospitals have been so clogged that ambulance crews have stopped transporting people unless they have a life-threatening emergency.

In Tulare County, a Visalia hospital — which has been treating more COVID-19 patients in recent days than any other medical facility in the state — declared an internal disaster last week on a day 51 patients in the emergency room waited for a bed to open up.

And this week, sparsely populated Kings County, which has one of California’s lowest vaccination rates, had one of the state’s highest per capita COVID-19 hospitalization rates.

Why?  Well, there's the low vaccination rate, and some mixed messages from some of the region's politicians.  Also, many agricultural workers live in crowded housing.  Many of those falling ill to COVID now are in their 30s, 40s, and 50s, making them their families' breadwinners.  Plus, Hailey-Branson writes: 

The San Joaquin Valley is plagued by a chronic shortage of doctors, and there are fewer hospitals and pharmacies across vast rural areas.

And the region has a high level of poverty. With that, medical officials say, comes high levels of chronic health conditions that make residents more vulnerable to COVID-19 hospitalization and death: diabetes, congestive heart failure, asthma and obesity.