Some Florida Hospitals Have More COVID Patients Than Ever

MIAMI – A month ago, the number of COVID-19 patients admitted to two hospitals at the University of Florida in Jacksonville fell to 14. Now more than 140 people are hospitalized with the virus, a tenfold increase in five weeks – and the most COVID patients this system has seen since the start of the pandemic.

Debra Wells, 65, was among those admitted to one of the hospitals earlier this month when what she thought was a cold got worse until she couldn’t breathe. “I said, ‘Lord, I feel like I’m dying,’” she recalls.

Like most of the patients hospital officials say admit in Jacksonville and other fast-filling medical facilities in pouches across the country, Wells was not vaccinated. She had worried, she said, that the shots were not safe.

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“I was misinformed,” Wells said this week after a five-day hospital stay. “I was not ready and I was scared.

A nationwide spike in coronavirus cases has led, suddenly and worryingly, to a surge in hospitalizations in parts of the country where people have been slower to get vaccinated, a predicament that experts hoped they could avoid because people who get the infection tend to be younger and healthier.

Nationally, hospitalizations remain relatively low, far from the earlier peaks of the pandemic. But in some areas with lagging vaccination rates and increasing virus cases – such as northeast Florida, southwest Missouri, southern Nevada – the highly contagious delta variant has flooded units of intensive care and COVID services which, not so long ago, had seen their number of patients decline.

At the two Jacksonville hospitals, the number of COVID-19 patients is higher than last summer, when the coronavirus hit Florida, and higher than during the winter, when the virus hit levels devastating across the country.

“It’s very frustrating,” said Dr. Leon Haley Jr., CEO of UF Health Jacksonville. “Every day we keep going up. We don’t know when things will tighten up. People are stretched out. “

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The situation is worrying in northeast Florida. The Jacksonville Mayo Clinic is on track to equal or surpass its previous record. Wolfson Children’s Hospital has its second-highest number of admissions, 45, after reaching 57 in January.

About 90 miles south in Daytona Beach, an AdventHealth hospital has more COVID patients than ever before. In the AdventHealth system in central Florida, the number of COVID patients increased 67% over the past week, from 430 to 720.

Hospitalizations have increased in 45 states, Washington, DC and Puerto Rico over the past two weeks, according to data compiled by The New York Times. The only states where they have fallen are Maryland, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Vermont.

Florida, Missouri and Texas account for about 34% of all new cases nationwide. Greene County in southwest Missouri reported 259 hospitalizations for COVID-19 on Tuesday, up from a previous record of 237 on December 1. As of Wednesday, that number was 265.

About a fifth of all national cases in the past two weeks have originated in Florida, which has become a microcosm of the country’s growing concerns over COVID. The state has the fourth highest hospitalization rate, behind Nevada, Missouri and Arkansas.

Hospital administrators and physicians from all corners of the Florida Peninsula have started taking action in recent days to restrict visitor access and, in some cases, elective surgeries to allow for the growing number of COVID patients. Their urgent appeals to the public were brimming with frustration.

“If we could get more people vaccinated earlier than that,” Haley said, “we probably wouldn’t be here. “

The rate of fully vaccinated people aged 18 and over in Duval County, home to Jacksonville, is about 52%, behind the state average of 58% and the national average of 60%. By comparison, Miami-Dade County, the largest county in Florida, where COVID cases have also exploded, vaccinated about 72%.

At UF Health Jacksonville, Haley said 90% of COVID patients were not vaccinated and 5% were not fully vaccinated. The remaining 5% were vaccinated but also had significant comorbidities or were on immunosuppressants.

Eighteen COVID patients – all unvaccinated – had died Wednesday so far this month, up from four in June. The median age of patients, which was 57 before June, has since fallen to 52.

Florida leaders expected a summer wave. For many weeks, Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, said the coronavirus would likely return in greater numbers – as it did last summer, with devastating effect – because warmer temperatures are pushing people inside, in air conditioning.

“It’s a seasonal virus, and it’s the seasonal pattern it follows in the Sun Belt states,” he said Monday.

But DeSantis, a possible 2024 Republican presidential hopeful who has seen his popularity among conservatives soar for violating certain federal guidelines related to public health and being ahead of time to reopen Florida’s economy, insisted the fact that – summer wave or not – the state would not impose any new mandate. (Florida has never instituted a statewide mask mandate, although local governments have.)

If the Biden administration decides to require masks in schools, the governor said Thursday he would call a special session of the state legislature to try to ban it. Earlier this month, his 2022 re-election campaign began selling beer koozies emblazoned with “Don’t Fauci My Florida”.

DeSantis drew attention this week for saying, “These vaccines save lives,” a line that was seen to be similar to other national Republicans and conservative figures who recently endorsed the shots with more force.

DeSantis has been promoting the vaccines heavily from the start, although he has faced occasional criticism for not receiving his dose of Johnson & Johnson in public.

DeSantis administration has focused on vaccinating older people who are more likely to succumb to the virus. The governor blamed the drop in vaccination rates among young people on what he called confused messages and bad decisions from federal authorities, including continuing to encourage mask use after vaccination and briefly withholding the J&J vaccine , a step according to DeSantis which was followed by a notable drop in demand. .

The state governor and lawmakers this year passed a law prohibiting local authorities from instituting public health mandates, a move that county and city mayors say leaves them unable to do much to deal with the new rise of the virus.

Last week, Mayor Jerry Demings of Orange County, where Orlando is located, recommended that residents, regardless of their immunization status, once again wear masks indoors in public. But Demings, a Democrat, admitted he couldn’t force them to do so.

“I wish there was more I could do to protect you,” he said.

At a press conference Thursday, DeSantis said that at this point, getting a vaccine is a matter of personal responsibility.

“We have three vaccines that have been widely available for months and months now,” he said. “People have to make decisions about what’s best for them. “

While the Jackson Health System in Miami, the state’s largest public hospital, reported an increase in hospitalizations to 171, they are nowhere near last summer’s peak of 485. But doctors said they were increasingly concerned about the number of younger people arriving with severe symptoms of COVID. . Dr Lilian Abbo, Jackson’s infectious disease manager, said she was concerned that some of these patients might need lung transplants.

Jacksonville Mayor Lenny Curry, a Republican, held a virtual press conference with hospital administrators on Wednesday to implore unvaccinated people to get vaccinated. Administrators also urged the use of masks, social distancing and hand washing, although Curry has made it clear that he will not adopt any city-wide policies to promote these behaviors.

“The math is clear: vaccines work,” he said. “Restrictions on our economy and our personal freedoms are not the solution. The answer is to get vaccinated.

When asked if the city is planning new routes or other measures to get more people vaccinated, Curry said no, at least not yet.

“It’s a time-consuming process,” he said of persuading people to trust vaccines. “There has been misinformation and misunderstanding. “

Dr Ragu Murthy, a cardiologist at Ascension St. Vincent’s Riverside Hospital in Jacksonville, said he asks each patient if they have been vaccinated, as many of them with severe heart disease are said to be at high risk. ‘they were contracting COVID.

“At first I think I managed to convince a lot of patients,” he said. “Lately, unfortunately, it’s people who are very resilient. I always make an attempt, because in my mind, I feel like this is the most important thing they need to talk about – even more important than their cardiology care. “

He thinks he’s gotten the best answer to the argument that vaccines provide a protective shield for family members, especially children under 12.

In recent days, he said, more and more people have been receptive to his calls, in part because they see the new wave.

“They had in mind that everyone was getting the shot, so I didn’t need to get the shot; I am still protected because COVID is almost over, ”he said. “And now they’re like, ‘Oh, my God. “”

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