COUNTY VIRUS CASES DIP, BUT HOSPITALS CONTINUE TO BE PACKED

Coronavirus totals from wastewater fall in latest report

Though both coronavirus and flu activity showed week-over-week drops in activity, the combined punch of the pair of viruses is keeping hospitals — especially their emergency departments — packed.

“The health systems are not in Armageddon, but it’s not pretty out there,” said Dr. Christopher Longhurst, chief medical officer at UC San Diego Health, Friday afternoon. “We’ve had nearrecord number of boarded ER patients, and the hospital is running at full capacity every day.”

Boarding refers to the number of patients held up in emergency rooms because there are not enough beds available in the rest of the hospital. Boarding has recently been cited in national studies as a major nationwide problem as the health care system works through a backlog of work while simultaneously grinding through the latest wave of viral illness.

Dr. Ghazala Sharieff, chief medical officer of acute care operations at Scripps Health, had a similar take.

“Everyone is slammed, not just UCSD, but we are managing,” Sharieff said.

But San Diego County’s weekly respiratory illness report shows that there was somewhat less activity last week than there was two weeks ago.

The number of positive coronavirus tests fell from about 5,600 to about 4,800, while confirmed flu cases fell from 2,600 to 1,603. The share of patients showing flu or coronavirus symptoms in emergency rooms also dropped several percentage points.

That pattern is echoed in the latest wastewater reports, which showed significant increases with a weekago update, but fell again Friday.

Generally, though, hospitalization and other severe complications of viral infections tend to follow spikes in positive test results and wastewater detection. And that has been the case in San Diego County, with 370 total coronavirus hospitalizations logged Thursday, up a bit from 359 one week earlier.

COVID-19-related deaths also rose, with 15 added to the county’s list in the latest report. But just nine of those occurred in December, with the balance coming sometimes several months earlier but only now being officially counted after health department investigation and verification.

All recent COVID-19 deaths were among residents age 54 or older, and all had other other medical conditions present.