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One hundred thirty-three – that’s the number of Oregonians in intensive care units in hospitals battling COVID-19, according to official figures released this week.
That’s the highest it has been in the past eight months, and just 10 people less than the highest number of all-pandemic intensive care patients, established when COVID-19 peaked in December. In southern Oregon, records set this winter are broken this summer
Dr Renee Edwards, chief medical officer at OHSU Health, said that to a large extent, the people she sees in the hospital are not vaccinated. Many are ill with the more contagious delta variant.
The delta variant has been blamed for a recent increase in COVID-19 cases across the country, with many states seeing record numbers of cases. While vaccines protect people from catching COVID-19 and becoming seriously ill, the delta variant has reversed all of the progress vaccines have made in slowing the transmission of the virus.
And patients who get sick with the delta variant are younger than in previous waves. They seem to get sicker, faster, and seem more likely to get seriously ill. It is no longer a disease which only hospitalizes the elderly.
“Patients who present with this delta variant who are hospitalized tend to be sicker and more likely to require intensive care level care,” Edwards said.
Since the start of the pandemic, doctors treating COVID-19 have learned how to treat patients and how to keep them out of the ICU. This means that once patients are admitted to an intensive care unit, they are extremely sick.
“PTSD is common in this patient population because they drown in the air,” said Dr. Sabra Bederka, intensive care nurse at Providence in Portland. “They literally can’t get air into their lungs, no matter how hard they try, no matter how hard we try. And they are terrified. It’s a panic situation.
Then it’s up to the nurses to calm the panicked patients and reassure them.
“It’s terrifying for us, because we’re in the middle of it,” Bederka said.
She said that after recovery, some patients are triggered whenever they become short of breath.
Before delta, COVID-19 was a disease that took its time. Patients would be sick for a week or two before needing to be hospitalized.
Not anymore, Bederka said. “Now that’s it, ‘I started feeling sick two days ago,’ and now they’re in the hospital. It crushes them, quickly and mercilessly.
Bederka said she was losing “too” people. And many of them are young – even in their twenties and thirties.
“They are my age and younger, and they still can’t do it. And they leave behind families and young children.
Physical recovery can take time.
“We can’t fix you,” Bederka said. “We can heal you, but we cannot heal you. You have to heal yourself. It’s a waiting game: it’s about seeing how well your body can recover from the damage already caused by this virus. “
Records set in southern Oregon
Jackson and Josephine counties in southern Oregon have reported the highest number of infections and hospitalizations since the start of the pandemic.
“We are in a bad position for our public health and health care infrastructure, and for the health of our community,” said Dr. Jim Shames, Jackson County health officer. “Our public health and health care systems are approaching, at or above capacity.”
Asante Health said its three hospitals were at full capacity. They no longer perform elective surgeries and do not accept the transfer of patients from other hospitals that normally send patients requiring intensive care.
In addition, Asante is unable to transfer patients to long-term care, as these facilities are also full.
“We ship around 60 patients a day who no longer need hospital care, but there is no long-term care center open to offload them,” Asante spokesperson Lauren Van said. Sickle.
Statewide, the increase in COVID-19 hospitalizations has hit hospitals at a time when their capacity is already reduced due to staff fatigue and the need to treat patients who have postponed medical care regular and cancer screenings earlier in the pandemic. Some of these patients now need treatment for more advanced conditions.
“As we see this rise of the delta variant, we are in a different place than a year and a half ago when COVID first arrived in Oregon because we are already busy with so many conditions. of care we have. fewer hospital beds available, ”said Dr Renee Edwards, Chief Medical Officer of OHSU Health.
With COVID-19, there are no borders
Unlike previous waves of COVID-19, which were heralded by mask warrants and increased restrictions, this wave came with little fanfare. There has been no statewide press conference warning of impending hospital overflows. No social distancing measure has been imposed.
There was just a written, non-mandated recommendation that all Oregonians resume wearing masks in indoor public spaces. It was released the day after the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended the use of an indoor mask in areas with high traffic.
Bederka’s lack of response disconcerts her.
“It’s their job to make decisions about masks, vaccines and warrants, and sometimes I feel like they’re more worried about their jobs than the lives of the people they’re trying to serve.” , she said. “Shame on them for being afraid, hesitating, or being blind to what’s going on.”
The state’s hands-off approach is in line with a June decision to hand most of the management of the COVID-19 response to local authorities, assuming any new outbreaks would be smaller and more localized. According to Oregon Governor Kate Brown, any stay-at-home warrant or order would belong to the counties. In addition to the masks mandates inside schools, public education protocols are also being developed at the local level.
“We have county boundaries, but it’s not like there’s a plexiglass border between Multnomah County and Lane County and any county in southern Oregon,” said Bederka. “There is no longer a border. “
It’s summer, and people are traveling more, and they’re carrying the coronavirus from community to community. And with the news that vaccinated people can still transmit the delta variant, any hope of surrounding less vaccinated communities with more vaccinated communities is moot, Bederka said. “People don’t understand that the risk will always be there, as long as a group is super sick and transmitting.”
It echoes the concerns of epidemiologists across the country, who fear that unvaccinated “pockets” will allow the virus to gain momentum before inevitably spreading to the rest of the population.
Healthcare workers have always known that COVID-19 is a disease without borders. A flood of cases in one hospital can quickly spread to others. Although cases are fewer in Multnomah County than in some counties in southern Oregon, Bederka said, his hospital receives patients from across the West Coast.
“Sometimes you refer them to a new hospital. And sometimes these hospitals are full, and we turn away again. But these patients have to go somewhere. It’s like, ‘I’m sorry, you’re full, here’s your next patient. I’m sorry you’re full, here’s the next patient, ”Bederka said.
And moving and transferring patients can be expensive.
“We have patients who have been transferred from other hospitals, and they have no idea that they were flown. They wake up and say to themselves, “Who are you? ”, Said Bederka.
She has to tell them that she is their nurse, that they are in Portland.
“Now they’re in another city or another state with a whole bunch of foreigners trying to keep them from dying,” Bederka said. “I don’t wish that on anyone.”
A preventable tragedy
Vaccines may not stop a sick person from transmitting the delta variant, but they can prevent people from getting sick in the first place. And if people get sick, vaccines can keep them out of the ICU.
“All of this is preventable, I keep saying it. All of this is preventable, ”Bederka said.
She understands that people are afraid of the COVID-19 vaccine, but if they saw what doctors and nurses saw every day, she thinks they would be more afraid of COVID-19.
“And the technology is not new. People keep saying it’s new, or it was rushed, and it wasn’t, ”Bederka said.
Although the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are the first mRNA vaccines against communicable diseases and the first to hit the market, they are not the first mRNA vaccines ever made.
Cancer researchers have studied mRNA vaccines for more than a decade in clinical trials. The idea is that by training cells to recognize cancerous DNA – much like COVID-19 mRNA vaccines train cells to recognize coronavirus – the immune system can start attacking cancer cells as well.
The technology had already proven to be safe. It just took a pandemic and an unprecedented scientific effort to cross the finish line.
While vaccines can keep people out of intensive care, as long as the circulation of COVID-19 is still high, they are not enough. Children under 12 are not vaccinated and many people are immunocompromised. Masks are essential in stopping the transmission of the disease to these people.
Before people go anywhere, Bederka asks them to consider others.
“Look outside of your own bubble,” Bederka said. “Realize that the next person you inadvertently breathe on could get sick and die. “
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