California orders hospitals to take transfer patients amid devastating Covid surge

Hospitals in California are so swamped by the coronavirus pandemic that the state has ordered those with room to accept patients from others that are out of intensive care beds.

The public health order issued on Tuesday night could result in patients being shipped to northern California from southern California and the agricultural San Joaquin Valley, where 14 counties were immediately ordered to delay non-essential “and non-life threatening” surgeries in order to provide beds. The order, which will last at least three weeks, also applies to any county where ICU...