Marietta Memorial: 25 COVID deaths last week | News, Sports, Jobs



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MARIETTA – The Marietta Memorial Hospital saw 25 COVID patients who died between September 12 and 18, and the hospital continues to set new highs for the number of coronavirus patients.

Twenty of the patients who died were not vaccinated, while five had been fully vaccinated against the virus, said Jennifer Offenberger, associate vice president for service excellence for Memorial Health System.

A person is not considered fully vaccinated until two weeks after their last dose, so unvaccinated statistics might include some people who have received one or even two doses.

It was in the midst of this period last week that Memorial nurse practitioner Megan Barnette posted a moving video describing her experience and encouraging people to get vaccinated.

“It’s really hard to see so many patients die” she said in the September 15 Facebook video. “And we’re at this point where, almost every shift, a patient ventilated by COVID is coding now. “

Since mid-July, COVID patients aged 32 to 89 have died at Memorial, Offenberger said. A third of them are between 70 and 79, she said, while 27 percent were 60-69, 15 percent each 50-59 and 40-49, 6 percent 80-89 and 2 percent 30-39.

Memorial had 80 COVID-positive patients on Tuesday, surpassing the previous record of 78 last week.

“We continue to approach capacity and continue to be challenged as we take care of patients,” said Offenberger. “It’s the same across the region – in our call this morning, Columbus reported only nine critical care raised beds available.”

The hospital remains at about 200 percent of its intensive care bed capacity.

“We have extended our COVID patients to additional units in our hospital”, said Offenberger.

Of Tuesday’s patients, 66 were unvaccinated and 14 were vaccinated. Although vaccines are believed to protect against the virus’s most serious effects, breakthrough infections – and even death – can still occur. The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention still recommends that vaccinated people wear masks indoors in public places in areas of high or high transmission.

“We continue to encourage people to talk to their provider and to consider vaccination if they are not vaccinated,” said Offenberger. “Please hide, respect social distance and avoid large crowds. “

Washington County ranked 12th out of 88 counties in Ohio in last week’s update of cases per 100,000 residents for the previous two weeks. As of September 16, 759 cases had been reported since September 2 among the county’s 59,911 residents. Neighboring counties of Monroe and Morgan were even higher, sixth and eighth respectively. Monroe had 199 reported cases among its 13,654 residents, while Morgan had 205 among 14,508 residents.

Meigs County ranked 22nd with 242 cases in the previous two weeks among 22,907 residents, while Athens County was 39th with 549 cases (65,327 residents) and Noble was 55th (107 cases, 14,424 residents).

The Ohio Department of Health updates these statistics every Thursday on its COVID dashboard.

WVU Medicine Camden Clark Medical Center had 83 COVID patients on Tuesday, after peaking at 77 on September 14, when the hospital had to divert patients for a while due to strain on its oxygen resources.

Of the 83 patients, 68 were not vaccinated, a hospital spokesperson said. There were 17 patients in the ICU, two of whom had been vaccinated. Twelve patients were on ventilators, two of whom were vaccinated.

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