While I have not posted an update in a long while, I have been asked many times in the last few weeks with the delta surge. So here goes, my first few updates were related to treatment options and the science but this will mostly only focus on numbers. Unfortunately, at this point, healthcare professionals are just trying to keep our heads above water.
As of yesterday, we surpassed our highs (from January) for COVID census and continue to progress upward. Our numbers have skewed significantly younger and more healthy than previous. By the numbers:
My hospital
Covid census:
January 21 (previous high)-52 patients/18 in icu
Aug 2-56 patients/17 in icu
Average age:
1/21/21-66 yo (all census), 67 yo for icu
8/2/21-45 yo (all census), 43 yo in icu
We currently have 6 patients from their early 20’s to mid 30’s in ICU
% vaccinated:
Currently 94% of census unvaccinated, 100% of ICU patients unvaccinated
Ochsner System on Gulf Coast
Also at record census-84 patients hospitalized with 23 in ICU
Average age: 47 yo (all census), 44 yo for ICU
98% unvaccinated (total census), 100% unvaccinated ICU
Baton Rouge Hospitals (Our Lady of the Lake, Ochsner System)
375 patients hospitalized with average age of 44 yo and 90% unvaccinated.
We have had multiple pediatric admissions with delta as well.
We are currently at around 85% admissions from delta variant.
Regional hospitals are currently at capacity (both floor and ICU beds). We have gotten calls to attempt to transfer from as far away as Beaumont,TX, Memphis and Savannah over the last week. This is a big deal as that hospitals start closest to them and work outward. We were the 26th hospital for one of the attempts.
Other Interesting Notes:
Nearly all of our vaccinated admissions for COVID over the last 3 weeks had been vaccinated with Pfizer. We have had 2 J&J and 0 Moderna.
Interesting that my wife was diagnosed 2 weeks ago after a trip to OBA (the Buccee’s/Florabama variant). She had the Pfizer vaccine in January. I did not catch it and had Moderna. We were on a trip with 7 other couples and had 9 of 16 test positive within 3 days of leaving. Of the 9, 7 unvaccinated but 3 with previous documented covid infections and 2 had been vaccinated with Pfizer. The 7 of us that did not catch it included 4 Moderna vaccinated and 2 with previous covid infections. There were at least 6 others infected (not from our group but from our area) from the night we were at the Florabama from the upstairs bar that we were in. We were all there watching a kid play that is from here.
Delta is highly infectious and currently a symptomatic infected patient is expected to infect 8-10 unvaccinated others. Please note that delta was discovered before mass vaccination so this is not a variant “caused by vaccinations”. I have seen a few memes on the book of faces that made this assertion.
I agree with
@stevesawbone about this being a pandemic of the unvaccinated. Although, Pfizer does not seem to be as effective at preventing delta, so far the data seems to show that it is pretty good at preventing severe illness. This is mostly my anecdotal observation.
Please stay safe folks.
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