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COVID-19 Treatment: 2 Yuba City High School Gyms Being Converted Into Medical Sites

YUBA CITY (CBS13) – Two school gyms in Yuba City are being converted into alternate medical sites in preparation for a surge of COVID-19 patients.

Yuba-Sutter area officials said the gymnasiums of Yuba City High School and River Valley High School will be staged with beds and medical equipment with the first round of equipment arriving Saturday.

"Establishing these two alternate medical care sites is crucial, as we face the possibility of our region being hit with an unprecedented increase in ill coronavirus patients," said Yuba-Sutter Health Officer Dr. Phuong Luu. "We need to plan for the worst-case scenarios, but we hope it will never become necessary to fully use those two buildings."

There are a combined 26 positive cases in Yuba and Sutter counties as of Sunday night with two deaths in Sutter.

The purpose of the sites would be to provide care to patients who tested positive for coronavirus "who are deemed stable for hospital discharge but still need to be monitored and require some level of assistance with medication management and other activities of daily living," according to a press release sent out by Yuba-Sutter officials.

"The idea is to have these sites available so we're not inundating the one hospital we have", said Russ Brown, with Yuba County.

Yuba-Sutter Emergency Services said they secured 500 cots, 1,000 blankets and 1,000 pillows for the two sites. Officials said the gyms were selected based on their size, electrical capacity, locations, and other factors.

"The plan has been in the works a couple of weeks now, mainly because they're open locations", Brown said.

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