HOSPITALS FILLING UP IN PENNSYLVANIA AS COLD WEATHER SETS IN
COVID-19 spike, pandemic-delayed care are both factors
Across Pennsylvania, a sharp increase in COVID-19 patients has pushed hospitals to capacity, leading to long wait times in emergency rooms and prompting some hospitals to delay elective care and limit hospital visitors.
Hospitalizations nationwide surged over the summer amid the rise of the Delta variant of the coronavirus, before decreasing this fall. Now, they have climbed back up again as the cold has set in and reached a daily average of more than 65,000 as of Saturday, according to federal data.
Upticks in hospitalizations have been particularly steep in the Midwest and the Northeast. Governors in some states — including Maine and Wisconsin — have requested federal health care workers be sent to assist them.
New coronavirus cases have been increasing across the United States, according to a New York Times database, a similar rise in cases to last year during the cold months. Last year, hospitalizations began increasing in September and peaked in January, when an average of nearly 140,000 people were hospitalized with COVID-19 nationwide.
The strain on hospitals in Pennsylvania, however, has been exacerbated because many of them are now seeing a crush of patients seeking care for conditions other than COVID-19, said Dr. Jeffrey Jahre, senior vice president for medical and academic affairs for St. Luke’s University Health Network in Pennsylvania.
“Last year, many people put their care off and did not get the appropriate care that they needed and have more advanced disease and are now suffering the consequences,” he said. The combination of those patients with increasing numbers of COVID patients “represent a major challenge to our hospital,” he added.
“I’d be lying to you if I didn’t say there was a certain weariness in terms of staff who have now gone through this for more than a year and feel frustrated that we have a weapon that could have prevented a lot of what we’re seeing, if people would only be vaccinated,” Jahre said.