S.

Providence ST Mary Medical Center, a small hospital in Apple Valley, has run out of I C U beds for patients inside coronavirus patients on stretchers lined the corridors of the emergency room outside.

A tent has been erected to screen and test people for Kobe.

19, the pandemic is taking its toll on medical staff, with many unable to cope.

Executive director of Acute Care at Providence ST Mary Medical Center.

Mindy Hickey We've had physicians retire.

We've had lab staff quit.

We've had nurses quit.

We've had Ah, Ciena's quit monitor text quit.

People have left critical care and gone to other units because it's just too much for them anymore.

It's really taking a toll on people.

It is.

Carrie Maguire, the supervisor of palliative care at the hospital, says the death numbers are staggering In my years have doing palliative care.

I've been doing this now 13 years.

I've probably seen more deaths in this last month than I have almost in my whole career and been at the bedside of that so Yes, we want public to take this very seriously.

Cemeteries are struggling to keep up.

Robert Gordon is president and CEO of Cyprus Lawn Cemetery Association in Coma, California.

It's a significant uptick and what we're doing, and it's really taxing.

Our systems were very fortunate to have made some decisions early on to prepare for the capacity, but it's a lot.

Last spring, the cemetery purchased too cold containers used to store bodies.

The containers, which each have room for up to 50 people, went unused into the fall.

California, the nation's most populous state with more than 40 million residents, has emerged as a leading US epicenter of the pandemic despite reimposing some of the most stringent restrictions on social gatherings in business activity.

Covert related deaths, considered a lagging indicator in the pandemics trajectory, have mounted steadily in California, crossing the grim milestone of 30,000 to date.