Staff at a Florida hospital believed they had seen the worst of Covid-19. They can be proven wrong

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“It’s sad and frustrating because we thought we were near the end,” nurse Lauren Schiller told CNN. “And in less than two days we were back to being like December, January, which is crazy.”

The number of Covid-19 cases at UF Health Jacksonville has doubled since last week. And there are fears that staff will soon be able to cope with the influx of patients.

“I would say we’re a few days away from operating at full capacity and really having some significant staffing issues,” Infection Control Director Chad Neilsen told CNN.

Florida is among the leaders in new coronavirus cases. “In fact, just four states accounted for more than 40% of all cases over the past week, with one in five occurring in Florida alone,” White House coronavirus coordinator Jeff Zients said on Friday.

And with the national average of daily new cases this week up 66% from last week and 145% from two weeks ago, according to data from Johns Hopkins University, health experts fear that with only 47.8% of the state fully immunized, it will not be enough to prevent the situation from worsening.

Do not be

Nielsen said 90% of UF Health Jacksonville Covid-19 patients are unvaccinated.

“We could be an entire hospital full of Covid in a month if things don’t start to slow down or vaccinations don’t increase,” Neilsen said. “We do, however, need policy makers at a higher level to really listen to us. Start doubling up on immunization campaigns, stop misinformation campaigns on social media. And really start helping the healthcare community because we are starting. to reach a breaking point across the state. ”

Debra Wells is one of 32 patients positive for Covid-19 in her unit at the University of Florida Health Jacksonville, and she said before entering Jacksonville hospital she thought she was going to die. Cases have doubled in hospital since last week.

Although he encouraged vaccination, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has ruled out the possibility of another lockdown and said the current situation is similar to what the state has seen before.

But Neilsen said this time is different due to the more transferable Delta variant.

It doesn’t help that about half of the hospital staff are not vaccinated, he said. Many fall ill and others suffer from burnout.

Hospitalizations and deaths from Covid-19 are increasing, and the vast majority have not been vaccinated

“My biggest fear is that patients will keep coming in and we won’t be able to provide them with the care we need because we don’t have staff or resources,” said Neilsen. “Staff shortages are really starting to affect not only us, but the rest of the hospital community here in Jacksonville, and if we don’t have staff to take care of patients, that’s when we’re going. have real problems. “

After the winter wave in January, the hospital lost many nurses, clinicians and doctors who no longer wanted to work in hospitals, Neilsen said.

Meanwhile, Debra Wells is one of 32 Covid-positive patients in her unit, and she said before entering Jacksonville hospital she thought she was going to die.

From her hospital bed, she pleaded for others to be vaccinated.

“It is the worst disease you will ever have in your life,” she said. “You want to get the shot. You don’t want anyone to have that.”

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