California coronavirus hospitalizations will exceed available beds in May -governor

California's aggressive stay-at-home measures are improving the prospects for slowing the coronavirus pandemic, but the state is still on track to run out of hospital beds in mid-May, Governor Gavin Newsom said on Wednesday. Compliance with the stay-at-home orders that Newsom issued two weeks ago seems to be putting the state on a course that will avert a worst-case scenario that would have seen millions infected at roughly the same time, leading to a need for 700,000 hospital beds, said California's health and human services secretary, Mark Ghaly.

But even with a planned increase in the number of hospital beds in the state from 75,000 to 125,000, that capacity will be exceeded in about six weeks, Newsom said. It was far too soon to ease the rules about self-isolation or allow students to return to school, he said.

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