California reported Sunday that 45,352 people newly tested positive for Covid-19, continuing a surge that has pushed hospitals and their exhausted staff to the brink.

Around the United States, hospitals are racing to keep up with surges of Covid-19 patients at numbers they have not seen at any other time in the pandemic.On Sunday, the country reported 125,544 current Covid-19 hospitalizations, setting a new record, according to the Covid Tracking Project. The number has exceeded 100,000 for more than a month.

Cases have skyrocketed since Thanksgiving, and impacts from Christmas and New Year's celebrations are still unfolding. As of Sunday, more than 20.4 million people have been infected with the virus in the US and at least 350,000 people have died, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

The rising spread has not spared hospital staff either. At one California hospital, an outbreak possibly connected to an inflatable, air-powered costume on Christmas has sickened nearly four dozen employees.And health experts worry what will happen to those numbers if infections continue to spread.

"This is about total collapse of the health care system if we have another spike," said Dr. Brad Spellberg, chief medical officer at the Los Angeles County-University of Southern California Medical Center.
"And we, in the hospital, cannot stop that. We can only react to it. It is the public that has the power to put a stop to the spread of this virus by obeying the public health guidance that have been put out."
The surge in cases has also limited the vaccine rollout, US Surgeon General Dr. Jerome Adams said Sunday. The Trump administration has pushed responsibility for administering the shots to state and local partners, but they are stretched thin by the flood of cases.

https://edition.cnn.com/2021/01/03/health/us-coronavirus-sunday/index.html