Officials keep eye on admissions
For the past three days, Shelby County health officials have expressed middling concern about the influx of COVID-19 intensive care hospitalizations and the status of local healthcare capacity.
And, on Friday morning, that healthcare data reflected a continued tightening of intensive care unit capacity, which was not unexpected, but remains largely unexplained.
Three hundred sixty-nine of 469 intensive care units were occupied as of Thursday evening. That’s a utilization rate of 79 percent, up from 78 percent from Tuesday evening, according to data obtained by The Commercial Appeal.
Health officials don’t yet know if the climb in patients is related to the growing clusters at area nursing homes or community transmission of the virus.
Shelby County Health Director Alisa Haushalter said Friday she would not attribute the rise is intensive care hospitalizations to elective medical procedures resuming. Instead, she attributed it to patients that have COVID-19 or are listed as patients under investigation.
And she described it as a slow steady increase, not a rapid one, something matched by the Commercial Appeal’s data. Knowing if the rise is due to community transmission or clusters of known infections is a key distinction, she noted. Known clusters would be less concerning to the health department than evidence of expanded community transmission.
The heightened strain on capacity will weigh on the decision by local leaders about whether it is time to enter phase 2 of the local
Back to Business framework. Intensive care unit capacity is among the factors local leaders are supposed to consider when deciding about entering different phases. A recommendation about when to enter Phase 2 is now expected Monday.
However, Haushalter ruled out that the intensive care capacity would be used in isolation to make a decision, noting there was a diversity of opinion at the decision-making table. Memphis is now in Day 11 of the at least 14-day window of Phase 1, but is still waiting on concrete data as to how Phase 1 is going.
Making a decision before the weekend would be “premature,” Haushalter said. Regardless of the cause, the more people who are in ICU beds means the region has less capacity to handle a spike in Covid-related hospitalizations. But health officials assure that Shelby County's 250 or so intensive care bed reserve remains untapped and the soon-to-be-completed overflow hospital in the old Commercial Appeal building provides a cushion capable of absorbing an unexpected spike.
Reason for uptick unclear
On Thursday, there were 51 confirmed COVID-19 positive patients in local ICUS, up from 50 on Tuesday. When including patients under investigation — those showing symptoms but without a positive test — the total potential COVID-19 intensive care beds has actually declined since Tuesday, going from 80 to 77.
The Memphis and Shelby County joint COVID-19 task force estimates that about 20 percent of patients under investigation actually turn positive.
Data shows that NON-COVID patients in ICU beds is higher than it has been since the beginning of the epidemic.
At one local hospital, Baptist Memorial Hospital - Memphis, Covid-related intensive care hospitalizations were flat, between Wednesday and Thursday.
Dr. Stephen Threlkeld of Baptist said Thursday the hospital had nine ICU patients related to COVID and five people on ventilators. It also had nine ICU COVID-19 patients on Wednesday.
Over the past week, Baptist has seen fewer patients related to nursing home and workplace-related clusters, Threlkeld said. On Thursday, in particular, the patients the infectious disease expert saw were not from local clusters.
Samuel Hardiman covers Memphis city government and politics for The Commercial Appeal. He can be reached by email at samuel.hardiman@com mercialappeal.com.
Corinne S Kennedy contributed to this report.