Miami Hospitals Brace For Omicron Surge

Miami FL

30 December, 2021

10:03 AM

Description

By Bianca Marcof, Miami Times Staff Writer, the Miami Times With New Year's Eve just days away, COVID-19 infections spurred by the highly transmissible omicron variant continue to soar across South Florida as Christmas travelers scatter back home and testing sites see hourslong waits in preparation for another holiday weekend. Also bracing for the continuing surge in cases are hospitals, which are gearing up for an onslaught of COVID-19 patients ahead of 2022. Across Jackson Health System, Miami-Dade's public hospital network, the number of coronavirus-positive patients increased from 212 to 252 Tuesday, with 41 in critical care (ICU). Cases at Jackson have been trending up in the last two weeks. On Dec. 14, the hospital cared for 43 patients with positive cases. Despite a rise in hospitalizations, Dr. Hany Atallah, Jackson's chief medical officer, tells The Miami Times that medical workers are ready. At this point in the pandemic, he says, hospitals know how to prepare for worst-case scenarios. "We're being aggressive with additional planning to make sure we (can) manage the surge," he said. "With the details that we know about omicron, we're planning for the appropriate bed counts, patient volumes, ED (emergency department) census, and things like that. It's a constant topic of conversation at the hospitals." Research suggests the omicron variant is more transmissible than previous variants. In fact, it appears to be the most contagious strain to date. "That is absolutely the fact," Atallah said. "The rate of infection is much faster than we've seen in previous variants. I think what's really truly driving it is, people need to be more diligent about wearing their masks, social distancing, getting the booster if they qualify for the booster and – if they haven't been vaccinated yet, by all means, they need to get vaccinated." On Friday, Florida reported its largest single-day increase of newly reported COVID-19 cases since the pandemic started. Miami-Dade County reported 52,435 resident cases in the week ending on Dec. 23 – numbers reported before people gathered for the holiday weekend. The demand for testing remains high after Christmas, with county sites like Tropical Park seeing lines of cars that spill onto Bird Road. In response, Miami-Dade County announced Tuesday that it is opening two new testing locations at the Youth Fairgrounds at Tamiami Park and Dolphin Station Park & Ride, and also expanding hours at the Zoo Miami testing location; it's now open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Of Jackson's 252 COVID-positive patients Tuesday, 41 are unvaccinated, and of those vaccinated, 20 are transplant patients. When asked about the importance of vaccines and whether or not the variant can evade the protection provided by vaccination, Atallah stressed the importance of still getting the shot. "There is no vaccine that's 100% protective against any virus," he said. "With different variants, we're going to see different effectiveness of the vaccine. Knowing that, I think we're roughly 80% protected when it came to the delta variant (and) I think we're roughly 70% protected when it comes to the omicron variant. The other point certainly worth mentioning is that if you are vaccinated it decreases the severity of illness, so if you do happen to catch it, you won't be as sick as you would be if you weren't vaccinated, so it is still protective." Baptist Health also wants the community to get vaccines and the booster shot. In an email sent to The Miami Times, Georgi Morales Pipkin, director of communications for Baptist, said the hospital continues "to recommend that everyone who is eligible receives the COVID-19 vaccine and booster shot as soon as possible." Across its 12 hospitals, Baptist had 337 patients who were positive for COVID-19 on Tuesday, approximately a 220% increase over the last week. Baptist reported 92 COVID-positive patients Dec. 20. However, Baptist saw its highest peak in cases on Aug. 9 during the delta variant surge, when 970 patients were COVID-positive across all its facilities. Hospitalizations have also gone up across the state. On Monday, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services reported a total of 2,406 patients with COVID-19 in Florida hospitals and 325 COVID-19 patients in ICUs, which was up from 266 on Dec. 13. For children 17 and younger, hospitalizations have also increased. Nationwide, pediatric hospitalizations are up 35% in just a week amid the latest surge, and Florida saw a 127.8% increase in children hospitalized, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data. On Monday, the CDC announced it has reduced its isolation recommendation from 10 to five days as long as the infected person is asymptomatic and wears a mask around other people at all times for another five days. But omicron is likely not as deadly as delta, although it is still too early to tell. "I think it's a bit early in this particular surge to say one or the other," Atallah said. "We have seen a much larger increase in the number of patients who are hospitalized in non-ICU beds as opposed to ICU beds. Our ICU consensus of COVID patients has increased, but not to the rate it necessarily would have, for example, with the delta variant. So a lot of the patients initially earlier on were coming in and we've sent home a fair number of patients from the emergency department. But as the surge continues, we're certainly seeing many patients we have to admit to the hospital because they're just too sick to send home." In a perfect scenario Atallah describes, everyone would social distance, stay indoors and get vaccinated. "I know this is not possible," he said. "But this would really effectively help reduce the number of infections we have in the community and decrease the spread of COVID. If we could really make a concerted effort to do a good job taking care of ourselves and do those things that we know make sense, we'll be able to flatten that curve very quickly and prevent a lot of people from getting sick, especially with such a contagious variant." The Miami Times is the largest Black-owned newspaper in the south serving Miami's Black community since 1923. The award-winning weekly is frequently recognized as the best Black newspaper in the country by the National Newspaper Publishers Association.