San Antonio hospitals fill up quickly amid COVID-19 outbreak, infectious disease doctor says

SAINT ANTHONY – Dr Ruth Berggren, infectious disease expert at UT Health San Antonio, says local hospitals are full amid an influx of COVID-19 patients.

She urges people not to go to emergency rooms or hospitals unless they are extremely ill and should instead seek emergency care clinics for less serious emergencies.

“The hospitals are full and we’re not even halfway through the peak of our surge yet. And we’re seeing a doubling of the hospitalization rate every 10 days, ”said Berggren.

The doctor explained during the KSAT Q&A Thursday that the rate of doubling of cases every 10 days has been occurring since mid-July. She added that the director of the emergency medicine department said they are currently seeing a record number of people in hospitals.

Berggren believes the steep slope in hospitalizations for COVID-19 is now steeper than in November. She said that in the past four weeks, 5% of hospitalizations related to COVID-19 were from people who had been vaccinated. The rest are those who still cannot be vaccinated or who have chosen not to be vaccinated.

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Berggren strongly encourages everyone to dress up, regardless of vaccination status.

“This is everyone’s recommendation down the line – to wear a mask when you are in any type of public place, whether you are vaccinated or not,” she said.

Berggren said data from the Delta variant has shown that even people who have been vaccinated can spread the virus. However, she stressed the importance of getting vaccinated against COVID-19.

“In San Antonio, we have zero deaths in the vaccinated population. So we see 100% protection against death if you were vaccinated. Sounds pretty good to me, ”she said.

Berggren added that by getting the vaccine, people are protecting themselves and others around them, especially young children who are not yet eligible and are about to start learning in person again.