(CNN) — Dr. Sergio Segarra says that when the number of COVID-19 patients at the Miami hospital where he works dropped to 20 last month, he began to feel optimistic.
“I remember seeing articles in the news about hospitals in California with empty covid units and I was looking forward to that experience,” said Segarra, the medical director of Baptist Health’s Baptist Hospital. “It is an experience that we were working towards and that, unfortunately, has taken a rather sad turn.”
In the weeks since, the hospital’s number of COVID-19 patients has more than tripled, and the staff is now treating more than 70 people – an “exponential growth,” he said, which they were not expecting. To accommodate the growing number of patients, the hospital recently reopened two units that had previously closed.
The vast majority of those who get sick from COVID-19 are not vaccinated, Segarra said. Many are young: people in their 20s and 30s who are getting “extremely, extremely sick” and some of them are dying.
About 45% of people in Florida are fully vaccinated, according to state data. Low vaccination rates, coupled with a dangerous variant of the coronavirus that is now the dominant strain in the United States and relaxed covid-19 guidelines, are what Segarra said he believes have led to the rise.
“It is very sad to watch as a healthcare professional, to see that this is generally a preventable and preventable disease and to see so many people die from a preventable disease,” he said. “It’s heartbreaking.”
With cases of the virus on the rise in most parts of the United States, driven by unvaccinated Americans and fed by the highly contagious delta variant, COVID-19 hospitalizations are on the rise in other parts of the country as well, and hospitals are preparing. again for another round of devastation.
And at hotspots like Florida and Missouri, where patients are rapidly filling up COVID-19 units, experts warn that an increase in deaths could soon follow.
Younger, healthier patients are receiving treatment
At Texas County Memorial Hospital in Houston, Missouri, hospital leaders say that half of the COVID-19 deaths they have seen since the beginning of this year, eight in all, occurred in the past week.
Just over 23% of the county’s population has received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, according to hospital spokeswoman Helania Wulff. And the county, now labeled “very high” risk, saw its positivity test rate jump from 9.5% last week to more than 30% this week, Wulff said.
Lauren Toman, the hospital’s director of respiratory care, said that while patients tended to be older and had pre-existing conditions during previous waves, now patients are younger and healthier, but they are arriving sicker and getting worse more quickly.
“They get worse quickly, very quickly, and then even after intubation, we see them get worse quickly and unfortunately we see people dying faster than before,” Toman told CNN.
All the patients he has worked with in recent weeks have not been vaccinated, Toman said.
An hour and a half away, Erik Frederick, the managing director of Mercy Hospital Springfield, told CNN that they are seeing the number of patients accelerating “at a rate that is almost unbelievable.”
The hospital went from 26 Covid-19 patients on June 1 to more than 130 on Saturday, a higher number than at any other time, including the rebound during the winter.
“Last year, it took us from Sept. 1 to our peak, Dec.28, to go from 24 to 113 (patients),” said Frederick. “We outshined that this year in 39 days.”
There is a “direct line,” he said, between the low vaccination rates the community has seen and the increase in cases and hospitalizations. About 40% of Missouri residents are fully vaccinated, according to state data, and some of the counties the hospital serves have yet to hit the 20% mark, Frederick said.
The patients there also tend to be younger. About 91% of patients in the intensive care unit use ventilators, and among them are young patients, in their 20s, 30s and 40s, he said.
While Missouri is rapidly emerging as a new COVID-19 hotspot, health authorities in other parts of the United States report similar patterns. Dr. Jeffrey Chapman, medical director at Cheyenne Regional Medical Center in Wyoming, says the surge in COVID-19 patients at the hospital includes a younger demographic that is overwhelmingly unvaccinated and “deteriorating” faster. “
In Mississippi, where less than 34% of the population is fully vaccinated, the state’s top health official warned that the rise in the delta variant has led to seven children being treated for COVID-19 in state intensive care units, including two with respirators.
Virtually every case in the state involved the delta variant, Mississippi state health official Dr. Thomas Dobbs said on Twitter, adding that the “vast majority” of cases, hospitalizations and deaths occurred among unvaccinated Americans.
Also an increased risk for vaccinated Americans
In Kansas, the University of Kansas Health System logged several days with just two or three covid-19 patients at the end of May. Now, he sees more than three dozen patients, according to Dr. Steven Stites, the chief medical officer.
More than 80% of new patients are not vaccinated, although others have been vaccinated, he said.
“When you research these patients, what you see is that they are all patients with serious chronic diseases,” he said. “Vaccination is not a complete freedom pass. It improves things a lot, but it does not make it go away.”
Experts say that while vaccines are very effective, they are not perfect, and Americans who have been fully vaccinated should consider transmission levels and the type of environment they will find themselves in when deciding whether or not to wear a mask. And the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has said that immunosuppressed people or those with chronic illnesses should check with their doctors before removing masks.
“I’m a bit nervous about the open society and people who think everything is normal when it isn’t and especially when you have a more chronic illness, you still need to keep your mask on,” Stites said.
In Mississippi, Dobbs said on Twitter that 7% of COVID-19 deaths in the state occurred in vaccinated people, calling that number “concerning.”
“We are allowing delta to circulate too much and reach our most vulnerable,” he wrote.
‘The only way we’re going to stop this monster’
Hospital leaders say the latest surge in patients comes as staff are already exhausted and traumatized by a battle with the virus that has lasted more than a year.
In Texas County, Toman said he is concerned that they will see a continued increase, fueled by the July 4 festivities and ongoing summer gatherings, that “will overwhelm every hospital in Missouri.”
“What I’m afraid of is, can we survive this again? Can we stay positive, can we all keep our morale high?” He said. “We try to be there for each other, but we are tired and scared.”
He said that while he understands the doubts some community members may have about the vaccine, increasing the state’s vaccination numbers will be “the only way we’re going to stop this monster.”
Segarra, in Miami, said he agrees.
“We haven’t made the progress we want in terms of treating covid, we don’t have that magic bullet in terms of treating covid, but hey, we’ve been very close to that magic bullet … and seeing it go unused is very frustrating. “, He said.
The country fell short of President Joe Biden’s goal of at least partially vaccinating 70% of American adults by Independence Day earlier this month. More than a week later, about 67.7% of American adults have received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine and nearly 59% are fully vaccinated, according to CDC data.
“We are dealing with a public health situation that goes beyond our personal needs, so we need to be a little more altruistic rather than selfish,” Segarra said.
“So if you don’t know if you will get vaccinated or not … think about the good that it will bring to your society, that it will bring to your community, because the vaccine not only prevents you from getting sick, it prevents you from making others sick.”
–
