Joint community message

Hospitals in Kern County continue to see an increase in patients needing high-level care for COVID-19. More than 98% of those needing to be hospitalized are unvaccinated. We need your help to end this pandemic. If you are medically able to get the COVID-19 vaccination, we encourage you to do so.

The community can also support our local hospital teams by only going to the hospital for life-threatening illnesses. If you are experiencing symptoms of a heart attack, stroke or other serious health condition, please seek emergency medical care. Hospitals are here to help. But, we continue to see an influx of people seeking treatment in our emergency rooms and calling 9-1-1 for treatments that could be treated faster by seeking urgent care or scheduling an appointment with your primary care physician. We urge everyone in our community to use the emergency system responsibly and call 9-1-1 only in a true emergency.

We would also remind the public that local emergency rooms do not administer rapid COVID-19 testing for asymptomatic patients or people without qualifying symptoms. Local emergency rooms are experiencing a high number of these requests, contributing to longer wait times, delays in care, higher and unnecessary emergency room bills and co-payments, and difficulties in maintaining social distancing. For a map of local COVID-19 testing sites, please visit phweb.kerncounty.com/Html5Viewer/index.html?viewer=COVID19TestingSites.

The Kern County Department of Public Health and local hospitals continue to work together to determine the best way to care for this unprecedented surge of critically ill COVID-19 patients in Kern County.

Please remember this simple prescription: Get vaccinated, wear a mask, social distance, wash your hands and avoid touching your face with unclean hands. Let’s work together to end this pandemic and get back to life as it should be.