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The spike in COVID-19 cases that pushed hospitalization numbers in Alabama COVID-19 to a record high on Monday put hospitals on critical alert, the president of the Alabama Hospital Association said today.
And the increase in number has nothing to do with Thanksgiving holiday reunions. The impact of Thanksgiving probably won’t begin to be felt until the end of this week or this weekend, said Dr. Don Williamson, president of the hospital association who was previously an Alabama state health officer.
“The ominous escalation” of COVID-19 cases and deaths and the anticipated “tidal wave” of Thanksgiving-related cases have worried some hospital officials about their ability to keep up, Dr Jeanne Marrazzo said. , director of the Infectious Diseases Division of the UAB.
“Our hospitals have the potential to be overwhelmed,” Marrazzo said. “Our ability to deliver the standard of care everyone is accustomed to could be severely compromised.”
The number of people hospitalized in Alabama with COVID-19 rose to a record 1,717 patients on Monday and 1,785 on Tuesday, according to the Alabama Department of Public Health.
Hospitals have even more patient beds. According to Williamson, 23 percent of Alabama’s 7,981 regular hospital beds were still available as of Monday, and 11 percent of the 1,627 intensive care beds were still available, Williamson said.
But the biggest concern isn’t the number of beds; is the number of health care workers available to care for patients, he said.
There was already a staff shortage before the COVID-19 pandemic started, with nursing vacancies that could not be filled, Williamson said.
And it takes more staff to care for COVID-19 patients than the average patient, he said. For example, a normal wing of a hospital with 12 patients might have two or three nurses on duty at a time, but if those patients have COVID-19, four or five nurses may be needed, Williamson said.
Additionally, COVID-19 is throwing nurses and other health care workers out of work, either due to contracting the disease themselves or having to go into isolation due to close contact with others who have been infected, he said.
While hospitals can handle the workload at the current level, as the pandemic escalates with the 20-30% increase in expected cases due to Thanksgiving meetings, “that’s where we’ll be extremely stressed,” he said. Williamson said. “I think in the next two or three weeks we will be very, very critical with the staff.”
Hospital and health officials are exploring other staffing options, such as the National Guard and military health workers, but the problem is that many of those National Guard members are already working in health jobs that they would quit if activated, he said.
Some officials are exploring the idea of working with the licensing council to make it easier for retired medical staff to get out of retirement to serve again, he said.
‘DISTURBING ESCALATION’
UAB’s Marrazzo said she was extremely concerned about the increase in cases and deaths across the country.
The United States is now averaging around 160,000 new cases of COVID-19 per day, and there are more than 96,000 people hospitalized for COVID-19 and 1,400 to 1,600 people dying from COVID-19 every day. Marrazzo said.
“This is one death per minute right now that we’re seeing,” he said. “Many of these people are dying without their families.”
The silver lining is that hospitals have improved the way they care for COVID-19 patients, with fewer patients receiving ventilators, he said. But this is a poor comfort in the face of the demands of the health system and the “tragic death toll”, said Marrazzo.
Alabama added 3,376 new cases of COVID-19 on Tuesday, bringing the total number of cases since the start of the pandemic to 252,900, state data shows. There have been 161,946 recoveries but also 3,638 deaths attributed to COVID-19, including 3,280 confirmed deaths and 358 deaths likely due to COVID-19, state data indicate.
One in five people in regular hospital beds and 30 percent of patients in intensive care beds are COVID-19 patients, Williamson said.
What’s more, one in five people being tested for COVID-19 right now test positive for the disease, which is an extraordinarily high positivity rate, Marrazzo said.
The first news of the upcoming vaccines is very encouraging, with a 94% success rate in preventing infection and notable success in preventing serious infection for those who contract the disease, Marrazzo said.
However, a big concern is that health experts still don’t have enough data on vaccine safety, he said.
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