COVID hospitalization remains high across Maine

Hospitalization with COVID-19 remains elevated throughout the state and can be further elevated based on the trajectory of infection with the more contagious and potentially more dangerous delta mutants.

As of Monday morning, there were 136 people admitted to COVID-19 hospitals throughout Maine. That’s down from 143 on Friday, well below the approximately 200 hospitalizations reported in the days of January, but 69 people treated in the intensive care unit on Monday saw on May and 1. I was ashamed of the peak of the 71 critical care patients who were killed. last week.

New case numbers were not available on Monday, as the Maine Centers for Disease Control and Prevention only updates data from Tuesday to Saturday.However 415 new cases reported on Saturday Is the highest total for the day since May 3rd, with an average of 246 7-day cases per day, 10 times that of July 1st.

Dr. Dora Anne Mills, Chief Health Improvement Officer at Maine Health, stressed concerns about rising pressure on the hospital system in Maine, saying the Delta Variant “pushed hospitals to the limit.”

Mills, in a long Facebook post, has up to 50 patients per day in the emergency department while Maine Health’s largest hospital, the Maine Medical Center in Portland, is waiting for a bed elsewhere. Is written. According to Mills, some emergency rooms in the “Major Hospital in Maine” have been forced to close several times in the last two weeks near ambulances and new patients due to crunches.

Mills, a former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Maine and sister to Governor Janet Mills, said that some regional hospitals are larger facilities for critically ill patients who require more focus and expertise. Suggested that he was having a hard time finding space in. care.

“I’m very worried because I’m monitoring the situation globally and nationally,” Mills said during her latest “Not So Easy COVID-19 Update” post. I wrote it on my Facebook page. “The surge caused by the Delta strain of COVID-19 virus has not given up. This means that it can take weeks to reach its peak, but our hospital is already full. is.”

In an interview, Dr. James Jarvis, COVID-19 Incident Commander at Northern Light Health, said that 90% of ICU beds across Northern Light’s hospital network were occupied by COVID or non-COVID patients as of Monday. There were 31 COVID hospitalizations on Monday at Bangor’s Eastern Maine Medical Center, 17 of which were in the ICU, and even at Presque Isle’s Northern Light AR Gould Hospital, there were 3 patients.

“It’s pretty expensive for a small hospital,” Jarvis said.

According to Jarvis, about 90% of ICU patients in the hospital network were unvaccinated and most were from rural areas. Northern Wright didn’t have to reschedule many of the necessary “non-urgent procedures” yet, but at the end of last week EMMC had as many as 10 patients in the emergency department waiting for a bed elsewhere. I did.

“Looking at our positive rate, it’s higher than Friday,” Jarvis said. “That said … it has always been a predictor of the future for a week or two, so I think more patients and people will need to be hospitalized.”

It can be sent when the space crunch is exacerbated, less beds are available in rehabilitation, acute care, or long-term care facilities and ICU patients no longer need critical care. In addition, pandemics exacerbate long-standing staff shortages in many healthcare facilities as workers become infected with COVID or are required to be quarantined after potential exposure.

This latest national surge caused by the Delta variant occurs when Maine hospitals are already crowded with all the trauma, other illnesses, and postoperative patients that come during the busy summer season.

At Augusta’s main general hospital, all 16 critical care beds were occupied on Monday, only two of which were COVID patients.

“As health leaders said Thursday, there are many factors affecting current concerns about abilities,” Maine General spokeswoman Joy McKenna said in a statement. “COVID-19 is one of them, but there is also the additional stress of lack of behavioral medical beds throughout the state and the inability to accept patients in other care environments such as long-term care. , Means more patients to compete. For bed space in emergency departments and inpatient units. “

Dr. Nirav Shah, director of the main CDC, lamented what he described in the main as “cognitive dissonance” as people heard both good and bad news about COVID-19.

On the positive side, Shah said the rate of new vaccinations has increased by more than 50% in the last two weeks. For the last 7 days, 2,645 doses of vaccine were given daily.

As of Monday, 71.2% of all eligible Mainers and 62.7% of the state’s 1.3 million residents had a full regimen of the dose required for a complete vaccination against COVID-19. Maine is currently second only to Vermont, Connecticut, and Massachusetts in terms of the percentage of the population fully inoculated against COVID-19.

The main CDC, in collaboration with the hospital, was able to open an additional ICU bed after dropping to just 34 beds on Thursday (69 beds available on Monday).

“On the side of concern, cases are increasing, positive rates are rising, and hospitalizations are increasing,” Shah said in the Maine Calling Program on Maine Public Radio. “These three things are of total concern.”

Shah also said that while the number of so-called “breakthrough cases” is increasing in Maine, fully vaccinated individuals land in hospitals or COVIDs more than unvaccinated individuals. He emphasized that he was much less likely to die at -19. The CDC in Maine reported 1,818 breakthrough cases as of last week. This represents 5% of the approximately 40,000 COVID-19 cases reported in Maine since January.

“And the other turning point in the pandemic is unvaccinated,” Shah said. “Because of the delta variant, the risk of getting sick, being hospitalized, and actually landing in the ICU continues to increase.”

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