Despite unprecedented attention and spending, tens of thousands of homeless people are still living on the streets of California, and they are fast becoming a hazard to the state’s ability to treat everyone who needs it as coronavirus patients begin to flood hospitals in earnest.
A new study puts the risk to the larger population in stark terms: It estimates that nearly 2,600 homeless people in the Los Angeles area alone will need to be hospitalized for COVID-19, and about 900 of them will require intensive care.
If that many homeless people do indeed stream into local hospitals in the coming weeks, it could lead to competition for what public health officials have said is an already insufficient number of beds and ventilators to meet the need. That, in turn, could further crowd out other patients in need of care.
“It’s a really urgent thing,” said Thomas Byrne, a co-author of the study and an assistant professor at the Boston University School of Social Work.
Read the full story on LATimes.com.
