Hospitals bracing for a wave of Covid cases they haven’t seen in months

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Mississippi’s chief health official, Dr. Thomas Dobbs III, tweeted Monday that a “fourth wave” of the virus had hit the state, although it “didn’t have to be like that.”

Dobbs warned over the weekend that beds in intensive care units were “getting cramped again” and that 11 major ICU facilities in the state had no beds available. The number of adult intensive care beds available statewide (138) is the lowest since March, according to state health data.

Meanwhile, confirmed cases of Covid patients in hospitals across Mississippi reached 369 over the weekend, a number that has also not been seen since March, with about 34 percent of patients currently in intensive care. Over the past three weeks, the state has faced a 200% rise in the number of hospitalized Covid patients.

Almost every new case of Covid can be attributed to a delta variable, Dobbs said Monday on the “SuperTalk Mississippi” radio show, and the state reports a threefold increase in new cases during the Friday-Sunday period compared to the same period. A week ago, an average of 800 new cases per day.

“It’s all age groups, but we’re seeing a lot of growth in kids and teens and then young adults because the summer is open, our vaccination rates, our immune levels are very low in that group of people,” Dobbs said, adding that the state has seen “a huge rise in the number of healthy people reaching 40-year-olds who are otherwise healthy are in the intensive care unit, on ventilators and are dying.”

While three Covid-related deaths were reported over the course of three days last week, Dobbs said he expects the number to increase as new data emerges, and that more than 90 percent of those who have died have not been vaccinated against the disease.

Dobbs remained an outspoken supporter of wearing masks and avoiding social gatherings in his state even when Governor Tate Reeves, a Republican, in early March ended pandemic-related restrictions after saying that “hospitals and case numbers have declined, and the vaccine is being quickly distributed.”

But this month, the Mississippi Department of Health announced new recommendations to help prevent the spread of the delta variant, calling on residents 65 and older to avoid indoor mass gatherings regardless of their vaccination status and for all residents of their age to get 12 years or older on Covid serotype.

Health care workers transport a patient on a ventilator with complications due to Covid-19 for a scan at Baxter Regional Medical Center in Mountain Home, Ark, on July 8. Unvaccinated areas like Mountain Home bear the brunt of rising Covid infections and hospitalizations from Delta Irene Schaaf/New York Times via Redux file

Mississippi’s full vaccination rate is less than 34 percent — the lowest rate in the country alongside Alabama, according to federal health data analyzed by NBC News. Other states with lagging vaccination rates include Arkansas at 35 percent, Louisiana at 36 percent, Georgia at 37.5 percent, and Tennessee at 38 percent.

At the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson, the hospital is ramping up isolation rooms and converting other rooms into “Covid treatment rooms” — indicating that the situation is getting worse and case numbers are back to the level seen a year ago, said Dr. Incidents to respond to Covid, on Monday.

Of the 55 people who were hospitalized at the medical center after being diagnosed with or suspected of having Covid-19, five adults were in the intensive care unit. In addition, two of the seven children who were confirmed to have Covid were in the intensive care unit.

On Thursday, the hospital announced that all staff must be vaccinated or wear an N95 mask if they are on its property, a policy to be implemented in phases over three months.

“We take care of the sickest patients you can imagine, from elderly patients to newborn patients,” Wilson said in a statement. “There is no room for error there. We have to do what is right for the patient, and the best thing we can do is vaccinate.”

The delta variant was responsible for the sudden increases in cases outside the South as well. In California, where the vaccination rate is above 60 percent, the number of new confirmed cases has increased by 225 percent in the past two weeks.

Related

Studies have shown that Covid-19 vaccines are very safe and effective. But misinformation still raises suspicion about them, especially in conservative and rural areas.

Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson, a Republican, embarked on a statewide tour after taking over as president of the National Governors Association and urging the federal government to give full approval for vaccines rather than an emergency mandate, saying that would address one of the arguments used by opponents that they might not be safe.

“Let me make sure this is clear: I am not asking you to trust the government,” Hutchinson told an audience in Texarkana last week, according to the Associated Press. “I’m asking you to look, do your research, and talk to people you trust, and that to me is the right approach.”

This approach differs from that of other Republicans who portray health leaders as enemies even as they try to reduce issues.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has been selling T-shirts and other merchandise emblazoned with the phrase “Don’t Float, Florida.” In Missouri, Governor Mike Parson has suggested that some health officials are trying to scare people into getting vaccinated. In Tennessee, the top vaccine official was fired amid anger from the Republican Party over its efforts to vaccinate teens.

Persuading more people to get vaccinated will be key to turning the tide against the rise in cases, said Mitt, of the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. But he said that imposing vaccinations or forcing people to be vaccinated will only deepen the divide, and it may take individual conversations or the Covid crisis in his case deteriorates before attitudes change.

“People have sickeningly heard our messages, but seeing patients struggling to breathe and wishing they’d been vaccinated could make all the difference,” Mette said. “These are real people who get really sick.”

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