Hospitalizations still up in South Florida while experts say omicron peak likely over
While there's a decline in the number of people in Florida hospitals who have a confirmed case of COVID-19, some local hospital executives said their staff is still being stretched thin due to the omicron variant.
Experts said the omicron variant has likely hit its peak in Palm Beach County.
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Boca Raton Regional Hospital:
Hospital leaders said the most patients they've had in the hospital is 120, which occurred last week. As of Tuesday, there are 103 people in the hospital with COVID-19.
"Yes, we are down from the peak that we saw a week ago, and that’s encouraging, but we are still extremely high as compared to the average number of COVID patients in the hospital in the pandemic," said Dr. Samer Fahmy, chief medical officer for Boca Raton Regional Hospital. "This is putting a tremendous strain on our hospital."
Fahmy said there are staffing shortages not only at the hospital, but nursing homes, rehabilitation centers and dialysis centers in the area.
"If a nursing home has staffing issues, then it’s not able to take on as many patients because they have limited staff, I have less places to discharge patients from the hospital who need nursing home care. The same applies for rehabilitation facilities," Fahmy said. "One of the biggest impacts we’ve had is from dialysis centers."
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He also said some of these centers don’t treat COVID-19-positive patients altogether.
"That’s causing a logjam at the hospital level, too, where some patients who don’t necessarily need to be here for medical conditions are just here because they can’t find services out in the community,” Fahmy said.
Fahmy said the hospital is admitting 20 to 25 people with COVID-19 every day, and any decrease in the number of patients with COVID-19 is minimal.
However, he said there are a few things the average person in the community can do to help.
"If you don’t need emergency services, please don’t use the emergency department as a testing site," Fahmy said. "The wait times in the ER are increasing because of the logjam we have in the hospital and using that as a testing site if you’re feeling well otherwise or have mild symptoms is not the appropriate utilization of our emergency department."
He’s also urging anyone who isn’t already vaccinated or boosted to get them, since that lowers the spread and ultimately reduces the number of patients who have to be at the hospital in the first place.
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Cleveland Clinic Florida
"Cleveland Clinic Florida continues to see an increasing number of COVID-positive patients hospitalized at our Treasure Coast hospitals, with a total of 199, said Dr. Richard Rothman, institute chair for Hospital Medicine. "As of today, we have 27% more COVID-positive hospitalized patients than we did a week ago. In comparison to the delta surge, we are seeing fewer people require ICU care with the omicron variant. We are also seeing fewer people who require respiratory therapy, such as ventilators and high-flow oxygen, than we did in Summer 2021.
"According to CDC data, positivity rates continue to range from 35-40% in Indian River, Martin and St. Lucie counties compared to a state-wide average of over 25%. We are hopeful that the number of new cases and hospitalized patients begins to slow down over the next week or two, based on observations of omicron trends in other countries and across the country."
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Lakeside Medical Center
"While Lakeside Medical Center has capacity, the number of hospitalized COVID-19 patients is consistent with last week, making it premature to speak to any trend at this time," the center said in a statement."