CBC News quotes Stephen Parodi, MD, on how California’s early COVID-19 response delayed a surge

Evidence is mounting that California may have temporarily relieved pressure on hospitals by issuing the first statewide stay-at-home order in the United States, Stephen Parodi, MD, associate executive director with The Permanente Medical Group in Northern California, told CBC News, a division of the Canadian Broadcasting Corp.

Several weeks ago, about half of the patients at one San Francisco Bay Area hospital had either tested positive for COVID-19 or were possible cases, Dr. Parodi said.

However, he added, “We saw within about 3 to 4 days of implementing the stay-at-home orders, a leveling off.”

According to the COVID Tracking Project, a collaboration of volunteer scientists, journalists, and engineers who track and collate COVID-19-related data, the states of New York and California had about the same number of coronavirus cases during the first week of March, CBC News reported. Now, New York has about 8 times as many cases as California and close to 10 times as many deaths.

While New York issued its stay-at-home order only a day after California, the 6 counties in the San Francisco Bay Area had already enacted their own orders several days earlier and shut their schools long before New York did.

“That’s when we really started seeing a dropping and leveling off of the cases,” Dr. Parodi said.

To read the full story, visit the CBC website.