The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
With no COVID-19 patients, ‘mood is back to normal’
Stamford Hospital discharges last patient as COVID-19 cases plummet
Once at the epicenter of the state’s coronavirus pandemic, Stamford Hospital is now at the front of a better trend: the overall sharp decline of COVID-19 patients in hospitals across Connecticut.
The hospital last week announced it had discharged its last COVID-19 patient and, as of Tuesday, it still had no COVID-19 patients admitted.
And although Gov. Ned Lamont reported Tuesday afternoon that hospitalizations in the state had increased by eight since Monday — bringing the total number to 62 — overall hospitalization numbers have fallen considerably since the outbreak began.
“You would never know even that COVID hit if you walk around the hospital,” said Dr. Maher Madhoun, hospitalist director and infectious disease doctor at Stamford Hospital. “The mood is back to normal.”
Local health officials largely credit the decline to public compliance, and dedicated hospital staff. But experts stressed vigilance to help keep the numbers from popping up again.
Though Nuvance Health — the system that includes Norwalk, Danbury, Sharon and New Milford hospitals — didn’t give the number of patients at its properties (due to the fact that numbers can change quickly), chain spokeswoman Amy Forni said the hospitals had only “a handful” of positive patients.
Meanwhile, officials at the state’s two major hospital chains said they’ve seen huge drops in the number of hospitalized COVID patients.
The Yale New Haven Health system had a total of 24 patients at its Connecticut properties as of Tuesday morning, including 11 at Yale New Haven Hospital, nine at Bridgeport Hospital and four at Greenwich Hospital.
Contrast that to April, when there were 444 patients at Yale New Haven Hospital alone.
“We’ve gone down very substantially across our system,” said Dr. Thomas Balcezak, Yale New Haven Health’s chief clinical officer.
He said, in additional to the low COVID census overall, there are only three patients in all the intensive care units throughout the system, and that there hadn’t been a death in a couple of days.
Balcezak attributes the falling numbers partly to hard work and good preparation by the hospitals. But a lot of the credit goes to the general public, he said.
“People are taking this very seriously, extremely seriously,” he said “They’ve been following guidelines about social distancing and masking. My only plea is that they continue to do so, and not stop. Where we go from here is very much up to the public.”
An official at another of the state’s major hospital chains had a similar message. Hartford HealthCare now has a total of 17 patients at its hospitals, including three at St. Vincent’s Medical Center in Bridgeport, and nine at Hartford Hospital.
Like Balcezak, Hartford HealthCare Chief Medical Officer Ajay Kumar said Connecticut residents played a major role in driving the numbers down.
“There’s a lot that Connecticut has to be proud of,” Kumar said.