Coronavirus hospitalizations have doubled in California over last three days

Hospitalizations continued to spike in California as the coronavirus spreads, officials said Monday.

Between Friday and Monday, the number of California patients hospitalized with COVID-19 in intensive-care beds nearly tripled to 597 from 200.

The number of hospitalizations has nearly doubled, from 746 to 1,432.

Dr. Mark Ghaly, California’s secretary of health and human services, said the state’s modeling suggests California will need 50,000 new hospital beds by mid-May.

“We project that we will need that toward the second half of the month of May,” Ghaly said. “So we are very busy trying to build toward that.”

Gov. Gavin Newsom declined to say how many people his administration believes are infected with the virus based on the state’s existing models.

“It’s a dynamic model and it’s radically different, I can assure you, than it was just four or five days ago,” Newsom said. “And if we had a model that I could more confidently say, based on all of these conditions and everything being static, then we would provide it to you, but I can assure you we are running those models in real time.”

California has recorded 142 deaths and more than 6.800 cases.

Los Angeles County officials on Monday confirmed seven new coronavirus-linked deaths, bringing the death toll to 44.

Six of the victims were 65 or older, and one was between the ages of 41 and 65, county Public Health Department Director Barbara Ferrer said.

Ferrer announced an additional 342 cases of the virus in the county, bringing the total to 2,474. That count includes people who have recovered from COVID-19, a number that officials are working to accurately track.