The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Virus surge breaks hospital records as toll on kids rises
Kentucky and Texas joined a growing list of states that are seeing record numbers of hospitalized COVID-19 patients in a surge that is overwhelming doctors and nurses and afflicting more children.
Intensive care units around the nation are packed with patients extremely ill with the coronavirus — even in places where hospitalizations have not yet reached earlier peaks.
The ICU units at Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital in Albany typically have room for 38 patients, and doctors and nurses may have only two or three people who are very sick, said Dr. Jyotir Mehta, medical director of the ICU. On Wednesday, the ICU had 50 COVID-19 patients alone, roughly half of them relying on ventilators to breathe.
“I don’t think we have experienced this much critical illness in folks, so many people sick at the same time,” Mehta said.
He said talking to family members is difficult. “They are grasping for every hope, and you’re trying to tell them, ‘Look, it’s bad,’” he said. “You have to tell them that your loved one is not going to make it.”
With 5,528 COVID-19 patients in Georgia’s hospitals as of Thursday, the state is close to exceeding its previous peak for COVID-19 hospitalizations, which came in January. About a third of all patients in Georgia’s hospitals are COVID19 patients. The state Department of Public Health on Thursday evening announced that many Georgia hospitals are so packed that they are unable to provide immediate care to ambulance patients, with hospital and EMS staff stretched “to unprecedented limits.” In the announcement the state agency pleaded with the public not to clog emergency rooms if they’re just seeking a COVID-19 test, and not to contact the state organization handling ambulance routing.
In New Mexico, top health officials warned Wednesday that the state is about a week away from rationing health care. The number of coronavirus patients needing care at hospitals jumped more than 20% in a day.
“We’re going to have to choose who gets care and who doesn’t get care,” state Health and Human Services Secretary Dr. David Scrase warned. “And we don’t want to get to that point.”
In Idaho, state leaders called on residents to volunteer to help keep medical facilities operating.
Texas and Kentucky on Wednesday reported more COVID-19 patients in their hospitals than at any other time since the pandemic began, 14,255 and 2,074, respectively. The Texas record is based on U.S. Department of Health and Human Services data.
At least six other states — Arkansas, Florida, Louisiana, Hawaii, Mississippi and Oregon — have already broken their hospitalization records.
Nationwide, COVID-19 deaths are running at more than 1,100 a day, the highest level since midmarch, and new cases per day are averaging over 152,000, turning the clock back to the end of January. As of early this week, the number of people in the hospital with the coronavirus was around 85,000, a level not seen since early February.
The surge is largely fueled by the highly contagious delta variant among people who are unvaccinated. In areas where vaccination rates are particularly low, doctors have pleaded with their communities to get inoculated to spare overburdened hospitals.
They have also sounded the alarm about the growing toll of the variant on children and young adults.
Children now make up 36% of Tennessee’s reported COVID-19 cases, marking yet another sobering milestone in the state’s battle against the virus, Health Commissioner Lisa Piercey said Wednesday. She said the state had 14,000 pediatric cases in the last seven days — a 57% increase over the previous week.