Healthcare facilities throughout California are stressed with an overload of COVID-19 patients.
In Imperial County , as of Christmas Eve , there were 205 COVID-19 patients in local hospitals. That is a 5% increase over the previous day. El Centro Regional Medical Center has 161 licensed beds and as of Thursday morning they had an inpatient census of 186 patients with 130 of them COVID-19 positive. ECRMC is utilizing a 50 bed medical / surgical tent that is set up in the north parking lot of the facility. As of Christmas Eve there have been 406 deaths attributed to the coronavirus. Also , as of Christmas Eve , there are 1,870 active cases of the virus in the Valley. Three ICU beds were available in the Valley.