Ambulance workers in coronavirus-hit Los Angeles told to stop transporting patients likely to die

Los Angeles ambulance workers have been told to stop transporting some patients with extremely low survival chances to hospital, and to limit oxygen use, as record COVID-19 cases overwhelm medical resources.

California has emerged as the latest epicentre of the US coronavirus pandemic, with nearly 4,000 deaths in the past two weeks alone, and hospitals bracing for another surge expected from the holiday period.

In Los Angeles, where packed hospitals have been turning away ambulances, medics were on Monday instructed not to transport adult cardiac arrest patients if they could not be resuscitated in the field.

The county’s Emergency Medical Services (EMS) agency also issued a directive for ambulance crews to save oxygen supplies…