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After the number of new cases of Covid, apparently fallen from the peaks observed in April, manyStates have been hard hit by a resurgence of coronavirus in July. One of these states being California, which ended up exceeding theCase account for the first epicenter of the country, New York. California now has the most coronavirus cases in the country, with more than 586,400 infected people. But what skyrocketed the coronavirus numbers of the state? According to a new study,a small amount of personal protective equipment is to blame for the California's deadly covid epidemic.

About 20,860 essential workers and associated household membersmay not have coronavirus If California stored a sufficient amount of personal protective equipment (EPP), a study conducted by the University of California (CPU) Berkeley Center work was reported in results published on August 12.

"It is likely that dozens of deaths among the essential workers could have been avoided with appropriate use of the EPE had been in place before the start of the pandemic," said the authors, believing that nearly 35% of care and other essential California workers whoPositive tested for Covid-19 have been infected at work.

WhenArnold Schwarzenegger was the governor of California, the state spent hundreds of millions of dollarsPurchase and storage of equipment for a potential future emergency, theLos Angeles Times reported. However, whenJerry Brown Taken offices in 2011, the state cut the expense to store and maintain this emergency stock. Thus, when Covid struck, there were 21 million masks in the state's supply, but all have been expired, they are only approved for low-risk settings and are not suitable for standard use of L 'hospital or essential workers.

According to the study, in a non-pandemic year, aTypical Hospital uses about 5,000 N95 masks. However, during the just March of this year, this request increased by 17 times the researchers to recommend that the State maintain "a stock of at least 12.5 million masks N95 for the use of California hospitals , in the first 90 days of a pandemic. "In addition, they recommend that for each N95 mask, there should also be 2 surgical masks, 1 face shield, 2 isolation dresses, 2 shoe lids and 9 pairs of gloves.

Unfortunately, efforts to fulfill the recommended offer because the pandemic stroke has proved expensive and unsuccessful. According to the study, a surgical mask costs only 5 cents before the pandemic. This price reached 55 cents per mask once Covid-19 started penetrating across the United States andThe N95 mask plus protector? Those who came with a price tag of about $ 1.27 before the pandemic, but it has increased since $ 5.90 per mask.

California has even tried to reduce expenses when buying EPI by signing a bulk contract with a supplier in early April for 300 million N95 masks at a price of only $ 3.30 per mask. However, this delivery has been delayed since June, which has indeed "the pursuit of IPI shortages in California during the first three months of the pandemic", noted the study.

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Not only that, but the results also indicate that the state could have saved about $ 93 million a week inUnemployment benefits-Who he had to pay 251,100 Californian health workers who were unemployedWhen the state has suspended elective surgeries and limited other non-emergence care to preserve the masks they have for coronavirus care.

"It was a shocking number after the other as I watched," co-author of studyWilliam Dow, Professor of Health and Management Policy at the Public Health School in UC Berkeley, told theLos Angeles Times. "Based on these numbers, we should build a stock for the future."

According to researchers, the "avoidable social cost of unemployment insurance payments and the value of lost life could easily reach each hundreds of millions of dollars in the next pandemic," if appropriate PPE storage is not created. And for more information on how the country manages coronavirus, checkThis state now meets the worst Picture of Covid in the United States.