Hospitals feeling the COVID strain
With case load at pandemic peak, beds are near full at some facilities
COVID-19 hospitalizations are starting to stretch the capacities of some hospitals in Metro Vancouver as infections continue at high levels and more transmissible virus variants surge.
B.C. health officials have noted there are particular concerns at Vancouver General, Lions Gate and Surrey Memorial hospitals, with bed occupancy close to 100 per cent.
On Tuesday, B.C. reported 377 COVID-19 patients in hospitals, up from 368 on Monday. Of those, 116 were in intensive care, down from 121 on Monday, but still 30 per cent of all hospitalizations. The hospitalizations peaked on Jan. 6 at 381, but intensive care numbers are now at their highest levels. Test-positive infection cases have continued at above or near daily levels of 1,000 for nearly two weeks, the highest levels since the pandemic started early last year.
“These numbers are extremely concerning, especially ICU and hospitalization,” Dr. Kevin McLeod, an internal medicine specialist at Lions Gate Hospital, observed in a social media post.
In an overview Monday of hospital capacity, B.C. Health Minister Adrian Dix noted there was a total of 876 regular hospital beds vacant and 122 critical care beds vacant. That number of available beds is higher if surge beds are included — an additional 231 critical care beds, for example.
Dix said while hospital occupancy was manageable and capacity remains good in critical care, because of the near 100 per cent occupancy in key Metro Vancouver hospitals, steps have been taken to better support hospital staff. Those steps include redeploying eight critical-care-trained nurses to support the Fraser Health Authority, home to Surrey Memorial, and a temporary halt to some surgeries at Surrey, Abbotsford and Royal Columbian hospitals.
“We'll continue to monitor the daily occupancy rate and take specific actions to reduce stress on the health system as needed through this redeployment of staff,” said Dix. “This will not be like last year where we cancelled, en masse, our scheduled surgeries, but will be targeted and for as short a period as possible.”
On Tuesday, in response to questions from reporters, Dix said that people who were admitted to hospital but are now clear of COVID-19, but remain in hospital for other reasons, aren't included in the hospitalization or critical care coronavirus case numbers.
The increased cases and hospitalizations are being driven, in part, by a significant rise in virus variants of concern that include the U.K. variant (B.1.1.7), the Brazil variant (P.1) and the South African variant (B.1.351).
According to the B.C. Centre for Disease Control, the U.K. and South Africa variants spread more easily. The U.K. variant may also cause more severe symptoms and worse outcomes, and the South African variant may be able to hide from the body's immune system. The Brazil variant may be able to reinfect people who have had COVID-19.
Variant cases make up as much as 50 per cent of all cases now, according to B.C. health officials.
Dr. Gerald Da Roza, head of medicine at Royal Columbian Hospital in New Westminster, said Tuesday that optimism that the vaccine rollout would lead to reduced spread of the virus has dissipated. About one-quarter of the 4.3 million eligible people in B.C. have received a first vaccine shot.
“We definitely have a third wave,” said Da Roza.
He noted that intensive care was at capacity at Royal Columbian and there was a fair amount of COVID-19 patients on wards.
University of B.C. epidemiologist Sarah Otto has estimated that B.C.'s ICUs could hit capacity by mid-May unless there are tougher restrictions to change the trajectory of new COVID-19 infections, particularly with the more virulent variants taking hold.