Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
U.S.’ covid hospitalizations fall to lowest levels on record
NORFOLK, Va. — Covid-19 hospitalization numbers have plunged to their lowest levels since the early days of the pandemic, offering a break to health care workers and patients after the omicron surge.
The number of patients hospitalized with the coronavirus has fallen more than 90% in about two months. Some hospitals are going days without a single covid-19 patient in the intensive care unit for the first time since early 2020.
The freed- up beds are expected to help U.S. hospitals retain staff members, treat non-covid patients more quickly and cut down on inflated costs.
More family members can visit loved ones. And doctors hope to see a correction to the slide in pediatric visits, yearly checkups and cancer screenings.
“We should all be smiling that the number of people sitting in the hospital right now with covid, and people in intensive care units with covid, are at this low point,” said Jason Salemi, University of South Florida epidemiologist.
But, he said, “A lot of people got sick, and a lot of people died.”
Hospitalizations are now at their lowest point since summer 2020, when comprehensive national data first became available.
The average number of people hospitalized with covid-19 in the last week nationwide dropped to 11,860, the lowest since 2020 and a steep decline from the peak of more than 145,000 set in mid-January. The previous low was 12,041 last June, before the delta variant took hold.
The optimistic trend is also clear in ICU patient numbers, which have dipped to fewer than 2,000, according to the U. S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Covid- 19 patients had f illed 30% of Kettering Health’s nearly 1,600 hospital beds back in January, said Dr. Jeffrey Weinstein, the patient safety officer for the Kettering Health hospital system in Ohio. Kettering’s eight hospitals now average two to three covid-19 admissions a day.
In the meantime, the public health community is keeping an eye on the BA.2 subvariant of omicron. It’s driving increases in hospitalizations in Britain and is estimated to make up more than half of U.S. infections.
“We’re probably under-detecting true infections now more than at any other time during the pandemic,” Salemi said.
For now at least, many hospitals are noting the low numbers.
The emptying of beds is also helping patients in rural areas, said Jay Anderson, the chief operating officer for Ohio State’s Wexner Medical Center in Columbus.
During the surges, the hospital faced challenges accepting people from community hospitals who needed elevated care for brain tumors, advanced cancer and stroke. That burden is now being lifted.
Visitors also will return in higher numbers. Ohio State will no longer restrict patients to two designated guests, who could only stop by separately.
Doctors, nurses and respiratory therapists are also getting a break in some areas.
The omicron surge had stretched staff at work — but also at home, said Dr. Mike Hooper, chief medical officer for Sentara Norfolk General Hospital in Virginia.
“It was stressful to be at the store … to visit your family,” Hooper said. “We’re all hoping that some ‘return to normalcy’ will help people deal with the inherent stresses of being part of the health care team.”
But just because hospitalizations are down does not mean hospitals are empty, said Dr. Frank Johnson, chief medical officer for St. Luke’s Health System in Idaho.
Some measures — like wearing masks in certain settings — will remain in place.
“I don’t know when we may go back to old practices regarding mask wearing in our clinical areas,” Johnson said. “We’ve seen some benefits of that in terms of reduction in the number of other viral infections.”