Coronavirus updates: Riverside County reports 15 new cases; National Guard deployed in California

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The number of Riverside County coronavirus cases increased by 50% Sunday from the previous day, climbing to 45 total confirmed cases with six fatalities.

The spike came as President Donald Trump approved the major disaster declaration requested by California and announced more resources would be deployed to the state, including a Navy hospital ship with 1,000 hospital beds.

Additionally, Trump announced that the federal government would deploy the National Guard in California, New York and Washington to help provide relief as the coronavirus continues to spread.

"We're providing all of this at no cost to the governor — meaning Governor Newsom," Trump said during a Sunday afternoon news conference. "It enables the governor to provide robust National Guard support to the state, so they're going to have control of the National Guard."

Riverside County officials also announced that California National Guardsmen were slated to arrive in the Coachella Valley to provide assistance to a local food bank. A day earlier, Gov. Gavin Newsom issued an executive order that allows the health care sector to be more nimble in its response to the coronavirus pandemic.

The county's sixth death, announced Sunday morning, involved a Coachella Valley man who died at a local hospital. He was over the age of 80, Senior Public Information Specialist Jose Arballo Jr. said.

California National Guard to assist valley

The California National Guard plans to assist food bank operations in the Coachella Valley, starting Monday.

FIND Food Bank, the regional food bank based in Indio that supplies hundreds of valley organizations with food to distribute, will receive help from 25 officers.

FIND has lost more than 70% of its volunteer workforce in past weeks, though volunteers are in more demand as more people continue to lose their jobs due to business closures mandated by the state. Additionally, many seniors are homebound and struggling to access food.

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Part of the reduction in staff has been due to rules that only allow up to 10 volunteers to be working at the FIND warehouse at a time, with 6 feet in between them.

“We welcome the National Guard’s assistance with the distribution of food and pitching in for FIND Food Bank, whose senior citizen volunteers are no longer able to come pack food boxes,” said Riverside County Fourth District Supervisor V. Manuel Perez in a statement. “I want to thank the National Guardswomen and men who do what they have always done, answer the call and report for duty to assist our communities in times of need.”

The California National Guard will serve as FIND’s volunteers and will help employees pack food bags, load food trucks and deliver bags of food at mobile food markets.

California National Guard officers will not perform any law enforcement activities.

“The National Guard will be instrumental to make sure we have enough people to process the millions of pounds of food that usually feed 90,000 people each month," FIND Food Bank president Debbie Espinosa said in a statement. "We expect to feed even more now with the economic impact hitting our community so severely. Our goal is to ensure that everyone knows where their next meal is coming from and no one gets left behind."

Espinosa told The Desert Sun that she estimates FIND Food Bank will have to supply food to an additional 10,000 to 20,000 people each month due to the economic impact of the pandemic.

Governor forgives rules for health care sector

A new executive order issued by Newsom on Saturday forgives certain rules that would cause barriers for health care agencies across the state to provide help.

“The State of California is fighting hard to get the resources that Californians need to meet the COVID-19 surge," Newsom said in a statement. "These emergency legal tools will increase California’s health care capacity and help facilities treat more patients."

The order allows for:

Looser licensing and staffing requirements at health clinics, mobile health care units and adult day health care facilities to allow for enough staff to care for more people

Local governments to use retired employees, if needed, to increase their staffing

Cities to waive noise ordinances that would prevent deliveries of food, medicine and emergency supplies at varying times

Loosened procedures at state psychiatric hospitals and the state developmental disability facility to allow for easier response to coronavirus concerns

Also on Saturday, Newsom informed Californians that he asked for 30 million masks, 10,000 ventilators and 2 million swabs and other medical supplies necessary to treat and combat the spread of the virus — in anticipation of an expected surge of cases in the coming weeks.

A USA TODAY analysis found that no state in the U.S. will have enough room to treat COVID-19 patients if the surge in severe cases mirrors that in other countries. It found that if the nation sees a major spike in coronavirus, there could be almost six seriously ill patients for every existing hospital bed.

California has also leased two hospitals to expand care capacity in the state.

Trump greenlights USNS Mercy for California

Trump announced the USNS Mercy, a Navy hospital ship with a 1,000 hospital bed capacity, would be deployed to Los Angeles to provide California with additional hospital beds to meet projections. The announcement comes four days after Newsom requested the federal government allow California to use the ship as it tries to expand its capacity to meet anticipated need.

FEMA administrator Peter Gaynor said Mercy would be ready to deploy within a week and would be used to take pressure off of California hospitals and not to treat COVID-19 patients.

"Based on analysis of potential needs for hospital beds on the West Coast, the decision was made that USNS Mercy would have the greatest impact on California," said Gaynor, who spoke after Trump.

Even though Washington currently has more confirmed cases than California, "the projected needs for hospital beds is five times more in California than Washington," he said.

Trump also said California would also get eight "large federal medical stations with over 2,000 beds" and "hundreds of thousands of different items."

San Bernardino County adds eight cases

Eight new cases of coronavirus were reported Sunday in San Bernardino County, bringing the county's total to 17.

Specific details about the eight people were not released. No fatalities have been reported, the county announced Sunday afternoon.

Positive cases began emerging March 15 and officials say more are likely as additional testing takes place.

In a statement, Acting County Health Officer Dr. Erin Gustafson encouraged people to follow Newsom's orders to stay home unless they're performing essential errands and services.

“These orders are not intended to spark panic, but rather reduce the spread of infection and minimize the number of people who get sick at any one time to keep our healthcare system functioning," Gustafson said.

Desert Sun reporter Nicole Hayden covers health and healthcare in the Coachella Valley. She can be reached at Nicole.Hayden@desertsun.com or (760) 778-4623. Follow her on Twitter @Nicole_A_Hayden.