The number of patients hospitalized “with COVID” and the number of patients hospitalized “with COVID” are changing – the Daily Democratic Party

Hospitals are suffering from an influx of patients and a shortage of staff due to the rapid spread of Omicron variants, but are infected with COVID-19 but are hospitalized for other medical problems. The number of patients is increasing significantly.

This is a change from the early waves of the pandemic, where the majority of people entering the hospital with COVID-19 had respiratory problems or low blood oxygen levels and often needed respiratory assistance.

It also differs in how current Omicron variants appear to affect most people, reducing the number of people who get serious illness. But don’t take that in the sense that the health system is clear, or that people should dismiss the virus, medical experts say.

And statistics on the number of infected patients, regardless of what was hospitalized, are where we are in the pandemic, and what to expect from this disease if it is considered a seasonal endemic virus. It is an important indicator of the disease.

What has changed

In the early days of the pandemic, “the overwhelming majority of people who were COVID positive were there (in the hospital) because of the need for respiratory organs,” said UC Irvine Medical’s Deputy Medical Director for Epidemiology and Infection Prevention. One Dr. Shruti Gohil said. center.

George Green, CEO of the Southern California Hospital Association, said patients seeking care experienced chest pain, shortness of breath, high fever, and body aches.

University of California, Irvine Researcher Daniel Zhou said the data in August 2020 It has been shown that an estimated 90% of more than 500 COVID-19 patients treated at a university medical center were hospitalized with coronavirus-related symptoms.

Vaccines were not available until the end of the year, fewer drugs were available to treat infected people, and healthcare professionals were still thinking of the best way to treat people with the virus.

The hospital lacked resources for critically ill COVID-19 patients. During the delta variant wave of the virus at Mission Viejo’s Providence Mission Hospital, “we were temporarily on one ventilator,” said Dr. Jim Cairney, Deputy Director of the Hospital’s Emergency Department. ..

At the UCI Medical Center, the ECMO (Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation) device (Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation) was used in 13 patients in the first week of January 2021. Patients needed it, according to data provided by the hospital.

The situation looks different today as Omicron is reducing the number of patients with serious illnesses. According to county data, the supply of ventilators available in Orange County fell to the 30% range in January 2021 and ranged from 60% to 70% for at least the past three months.

“Now it’s a completely different situation,” Gohil said, because no one had immunity when the virus was new.

“Because the entire population was vulnerable at the time, it is not a fair competition to compare the time with the present.”

“Mix bag”

today, 2.1 million of the approximately 3.2 million inhabitants of Orange County were vaccinated Also, while some have some immunity from previous infections, many people infected with COVID-19 are less ill and can be infected with the virus at home. Omicron is also believed to cause less serious illnesses in many people.

Some patients appearing in the hospital are seeking early treatment because they have an unrelated emergency or are afraid of infection, Green said. However, they then test positive for the virus and are added to the reported COVID-19 hospitalization.

“The way we explain it is that people are hospitalized with COVID instead of COVID,” Greene said.

Gohil called the current patient population a “mixed bag” and said it included COVID-positive people who were not in the hospital because of COVID-specific symptoms, but “even if mild, in certain people. It can be unstable. Your underlying condition. “

For example, chronic illnesses such as diabetes, COPD, and heart failure may be managed until COVID-19 is infected. Also, when the body tries to fight a new infection, it is sent to the hospital due to long-standing health problems. ..

The UCI Medical Center estimates that Gohil and Chow are currently close to 50/50 between COVID-positive patients admitted with symptoms and complications of the disease and those with some other primary diagnosis.

Reflecting this change, New York State Health Authority Massachusetts Earlier this month, he said he would change the way COVID-19 hospitalization data are reported to isolate “accidental” cases.

California doesn’t currently make that distinction in publicly available data or Orange County, but Dr. Regina Chincio Kwon, Deputy Health Officer at the OC Healthcare Agency, talks with hospital staff and who is in the hospital. He said he was trying to get more information about what he was doing at COVID-19.

Its meaning

As a result of all this, according to health experts, Omicron appears to be less ill than previous viral variants, but hospitals have not facilitated this surge.

COVID-positive patients should be kept separate from uninfected patients, regardless of what was taken to the hospital, and nurses should wear protective equipment and change frequently. And because Omicron spreads so easily, as the number of infected people increases, the number of infected people inevitably increases and goes to the hospital.

According to Gohill, rehab and long-term care facilities that normally take people who do not normally require hospital-level care but are not ready to return home are currently full or dealing with outbreaks, so some Patients are longer than they may have to stay in the hospital.

“What we think we should get rid of is that we are still in pandemic mode,” Gohil said. “We don’t want another variant to appear.” That’s because it can be worse than Omicron.

Health officials continue to encourage everyone who is eligible to get a vaccine or booster, as it has been shown to protect people from the most serious complications of COVID-19. According to county statistics, 86% of inpatients with COVID-19 are unvaccinated, and 87% of COVID-positive people in the intensive care unit are also unvaccinated.

Due to the large number of people infected with Omicron, “If we didn’t combine the vaccine with innate immunity (due to previous infections), the bodies would pile up and would look a lot like New York City in the first round. Providence Mission Keeney said.

While the available data in Orange County and California do not fully reflect changes in the patient population, the Hospital Association’s Green is still a valuable indicator of where things are heading. Said.

Without tracking cases and hospitalizations, the percentage of people developing antibodies is unknown, and how the virus is developing a protocol for the “don’t want to say-COVID season” that is prevalent in the virus. Knowing how to behave is essential. ..