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A Missouri hospital is seeing cases of Covid-19 at “an almost unbelievable rate,” with more than 90% of intensive care patients on ventilators, according to Erik Frederick, executive director of Mercy Hospital in Springfield, Missouri.
“We started today with 133 Covid positive patients in our hospital.… I would say, locally, in our facility, in our southwestern Missouri health care system, we are absolutely stretched, more than we are. have been last year. And I would say it’s a managed crisis at this point for sure. We’re seeing things that we haven’t seen last year at an almost unbelievable rate, when we see how quickly it accelerated, ”Frederick told CNN.
“As of June 1, we had 26 in-house patients. We hit 128 yesterday. And like I said, 133 today. So in 39 days we made that acceleration. Last year , it took us from September 1 to our peak December 28 to go from 24 to 113. So 150 days, ”Frederick added.
Frederick said “it is impossible not” to link the increase in the number of cases to a drop in vaccination rates in the region. Southern Missouri is one of five under-vaccinated clusters that are vulnerable to outbreaks of Covid-19 cases as the Delta variant spreads in the United States.
Frederick said the local vaccination rate is around 38%, but some rural vaccination figures are looming among adolescents.
He said health workers needed to “mobilize our resources,” including ventilators, to cope with the spike in cases and patients.
“We used the bedside fans but had more on hand if needed. We were fine from an equipment point of view, but we were definitely tested,” he said.
The U.S. government is deploying a Covid-19 rescue team to provide public health support in southwest Missouri.
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