What should people do to help stop the COVID-19 surge?
Local doctors, nurses and hospital officials are bracing for what might be among the darkest days of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Dr. Andy Thomas, chief clinical officer at the Ohio State University Wexner Center, said with family and friends celebrating the season together, a post-Christmas uptick in COVID-19 cases is inevitable in Columbus.
“We’re seeing … case numbers in the northeast Ohio area that are nine to 10 times higher than what they were just six weeks ago. We are lucky right now in Columbus that we are not seeing those same numbers, but we expect in the next two to three weeks that we will,” Thomas said during the Dispatch presents Columbus Conversation, “An Urgent Appeal for Help Stopping the COVID-19 Surge.”
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The virtual event was hosted by Dispatch Opinion and Community Engagement Editor Amelia Robinson, and Dispatch health and medicine reporter Max Filby, with help from the Central Ohio Hospital Council.
The Columbus Conversations series seeks to find solutions to issues of importance to this community.
Videos of the discussion can be viewed here, on the Dispatch website at https://bit.ly/ColumbusConversationCOVID or on its Facebook page and YouTube channels.
Excerpts of the discussion, the result of a partnership with The Columbus Foundation, are below.
What should people do to stop the COVID-19 surge?
‘A wake-up call’
DR. ANDY THOMAS – Chief clinical officer, Ohio State University Wexner Center
While the vaccine effectiveness in terms of people getting the infection is down a little bit from the other variants of the virus … the vaccine is still very protective for severe disease, so the risk of getting pneumonia, the risk of needing to be in the hospital – or God forbid, on a ventilator – is still significantly decreased.
I think the contagious nature of this new Omicron variant is significantly higher than the Delta variant which was significantly higher than previous versions of the virus. This is a wake-up call that it’s time to get vaccinated if you’re not vaccinated, get your booster if you haven’t and you’re eligible, and please, when you’re in a public setting – in a store, at your child’s basketball game, whatever it is – please, wear a mask. It’s really important.
‘Home tests: a snapshot in time’
DR. JOSEPH GASTALDO, system medical director of infectious diseases, OhioHealth
The CDC once a week leaves a variant report that’s available to the public, it’s called the Nowcast.
In the Midwest, 92 percent of what we are seeing is the Omicron variant.The Omicron variant is now king of the mountain as far as how contagious it is. Delta, in the public, doubled every seven days. With the Omicron variant, it’s doubling in the public every two to three days.
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We’re all familiar with the tools we have like masking, paying attention the ventilation of air. What’s different this year is, obviously, vaccines. Vaccines are still performing well with what they were intended to do against Omicron, to really mitigate or prevent or really give a great layer of protection against severe disease.
We also need to be on point for home testing. A home test is a snapshot in time to let you know if you are contagious with the virus that causes COVID-19. Home antigen testing will detect the Omicron variant.
How is the virus impacting children?
‘Proven to be safe’
DR. RUSTIN MORSE – chief medical officer, Nationwide Children’s Hospital
We’re fortunate that this disease is not hitting the children as hard on the physical health perspective, but of the children who are hospitalized and the children who are in the ICU, they are all unvaccinated – for those who are eligible to be vaccinated. It is a very safe vaccine. It’s been tested and proven to be safe in children. We’re not seeing adverse reactions from it, no more than we would with any other vaccines.
I think it’s time to move past this questioning the efficacy and the trust of the vaccine and do your part to keep yourself healthy and especially your children, because we don’t want to see children getting hurt in this fire.
What is the situation in hospitals?
‘Keep an open mind’
BRUCE WHITE, chief executive officer, Knox Community Hospital
Coming from a small community hospital’s perspective, I’d just share some numbers. Our hospital has 69 beds, inpatient beds. (As of Dec. 21), 19 of those were filled with COVID-positive patients, 18 of them were unvaccinated.
Only one was what people refer to as a breakthrough case, so I think in addition to what has already been said about the safeness, the efficacy and so on, I think it’s been proven, at least in our small hospital, that the people who are coming in with COVID are the unvaccinated, and they’re requiring that higher level of care that an inpatient stay requires.
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So while I can sympathize and empathize with people’s hesitancy to a certain degree, I would say keep an open mind. Keep trying to learn. Please don’t make a decision from which you say, ‘I’m never going to change,’ because new information is coming around all the day.
‘A steady incline’
JERRY MANSFIELD, chief nursing officer, Mount Carmel Hospital
Right now, our COVID numbers are hovering around over 130 per day. We’ve seen a gradual increase since October and it’s just been a steady incline. Patients in the ICU … around 20% or so are vaccinated, and in the general care areas, about 26%. So … while (being) vaccinated may not prevent a hospitalization, it certainly can mitigate the seriousness of it.
This current condition of where we are right now — while it is less numbers than we were at our last surge last year — we have every indication to know that’s going to increase over the next four to six weeks here in central Ohio.
Join the conversation here on our website or in our opinion page Facebook group: https://bit.ly/ColumbusDispatchConversation.
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