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A shocking reality test is taking place in intensive care units across the country as thousands of COVID-19 positive patients, almost all unvaccinated, flock to hospitals in need of care.
This is especially true in Florida, where hospitalizations linked to the virus have skyrocketed in recent weeks. The situation quickly worsened, now approaching peak levels, with nearly 7,900 patients hospitalized with the virus across the state, up more than 320% in the past month, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“Looks like it’s an impending storm… there is no exit ramp to make it worse,” Dr. David Wein, an emergency room doctor at Tampa General Hospital in Florida, told ABC News Wednesday.
As of Tuesday this week, more than 1,450 COVID-19 patients were admitted to state hospitals, marking the highest number of patients seeking care in a 24-hour period in Florida since the start of the pandemic.
“Right now, at Tampa General Hospital, we’re really feeling the crush of this increased incidence of COVID-19, and so the Delta region has really brought a lot of patients to our emergency room,” requiring treatment and admission, “Peggy Dugan, the hospital’s vice president and chief medical officer, told ABC News in an exclusive interview.
Just six weeks ago, some team members thought they might have come out of the woods, with measurements steadily declining across the country.
“It was as if we were ready to go in the right direction and start to see it level off. And it was a surprise to see it evolve as it has,” said Erika Mergl, Nurse in charge of Global Emerging Diseases Institute at Tampa General Hospital.
However, hospitalization levels linked to the virus are now approaching peak levels.
“We are coming to figures as high as last summer. At the beginning of July, we were only 12 COVID-19 patients in the hospital, and today we have 80. So we are really seeing an escalation on a short period of time, ”Duggan said.
The situation in Tampa is not an anomaly. Almost every state in the country is now experiencing cases and hospitalizations related to COVID-19 are increasing. Levels of hospitalizations linked to the virus are now at their highest level since April, with nearly 33,700 patients receiving care, about 10,000 more than a week ago.
Many Tampa General patients are younger, Dugan said, some as young as 22 or 23, and “nearly” all have not been vaccinated, the hospital said.
One of the hospital’s unvaccinated patients is Gerard Considine, a 64-year-old patient, who spent nine days intubated after testing positive for the virus.
“I’m not used to being afraid of anything, but it scared me,” Considine told ABC News.
Considine said he did not receive the COVID-19 vaccine because he had had adverse reactions to other vaccines, but despite his ordeal, he does not think he will choose to be vaccinated, believing that he has developed antibodies at this point.
However, said Duggan, “we are seeing people who are recovering now very regretting that they were not vaccinated in the first place.”
Many patients who arrive at the hospital are already very sick when they arrive, Wein said.
“Unfortunately, we see people who arrive a few days or even days with their illness and sicker, with difficulty breathing, needing to be admitted to the hospital. So it looks more like this winter wave that we had,” Wein said, adding that a number of those patients end up on ventilators.
“It’s heartbreaking because all of this could have been avoided, it’s unnecessary human suffering that we are witnessing right now,” Dr Seetha Lakshmi, medical director of the Global Emerging Diseases Institute at Tampa General, told ABC News. Hospital.
Several frontline workers at Tampa General Hospital have expressed deep concern and fear to ABC News about the coming weeks for their teams, given the exponential rise in virus-related infections and hospitalizations in the state and from the hospital, stressing that their message to Americans is that vaccinations are essential to control the pandemic and end suffering.
The difference between getting the shot or not getting the shot is ultimately akin to “the difference between having a cold and dying,” Wein said. “If a vaccinated patient receives this, they will most likely be fine and not end up in the hospital. Unfortunately, the unvaccinated person has a very high likelihood of ending up in the hospital on a ventilator.”
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