Unvaccinated comprise majority of Covid-19 patient population at Spectrum Health Lakeland

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Unvaccinated comprise majority of Covid-19 patient population at Spectrum Health Lakeland

BY FRANCESCA SAGALA

The unvaccinated have made up most Covid-19 patients who are in the hospital, Dr. Loren Hamel, president of Spectrum Health Lakeland, said during a joint Facebook Live update with Berrien County medical director Rex Cabaltica, per 100,000 residents for the week of Dec. 20-27, and a positivity rate of 22.5%. Cabaltica said that the omicron variant is “out there.” “We don’t know that it’s necessarily hit Berrien County, but we do know it has hit the counties to the north of us,” he MD, Wednesday, Dec. 22.

The previous week, Hamel said that Spectrum had moved its command center status to red.

This means that its normal capacity has been exceeded and patients were being placed in areas where “we don’t tend to place patients normally.” The hospital also has staffing ratios higher than they normally would be and nurses were “caring for more patients than they typically would.”

“We expected that, we worked to get ready for that…The team is working hard to accommodate those higher volumes but that just indicates we are above our normal capacity and working in different ways to meet the needs of our community,” he said.

He said SPHL’s peak the previous week was at 84 Covid patients and that it was running at 69 Dec. 22.

Of those 69 patients, 88% of them were unvaccinated and 100% of ICU patients were unvaccinated. Hamel said that “essentially, all deaths we’ve experienced over the last weeks were unvaccinated.”

“That’s still really important for you to think about whether you’ve been vaccinated or not or it’s time for you to have a booster – that is very helpful in protecting you against severe illness, hospitalization, ventilator use and, ultimately, death.”

In terms of surgery deferrals, Hamel said that SHL is “doing all we can to keep up with current surgeries” and that they were keeping up with “essentially all of them.”

Cabaltica said that the county’s seen a nearly “exponential rise” in Covid cases over the last two months and “widespread community transmission.”

On Dec. 22, he said the county’s seen about 25 to 26 new cases over the past seven days. The positivity rate remained at 23%, which means the county remains in high transmission status.

On Dec. 29, state data was reporting 451.8 new cases said. Hamel said that earliest indications are that the newest variant isn’t as a bad a strain as the delta one “when it comes to virality, when it comes to putting people in the hospital and when causing death” - but it’s markedly more contagious. “We don’t know yet if this is going to drive our hospitalizations much higher or about the same as the delta strain but I suspect we’re going to learn that over the next two to three weeks,” he said. Hamel added that the variant is now “exploding” across the country and will become the dominant strain. Hamel said that even though omicron may be little less severe, they still must contend with the delta variant that’s circulating in the community and the younger resident population in the emergency department being “extremely sick” from it.

Hamel said they’re finding that the Johnson and Johnson vaccine doesn’t “produce as much resistance at all to infection” and that the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines offer greater protection – and with the booster, some “really good protection.”

He cautioned that the vaccines might not prevent illness, but they seem very effective in preventing severe disease and death.

“Get a booster, and it will give you additional protection,” Hamel added.

The Berrien County Health Department is now offering Pfizer COVID-19 booster doses for residents ages 16 to 17. Individuals are eligible for the Pfizer booster six months after they complete the primary two-dose vaccine series. It is recommended teens who received the Pfizer vaccine series stay consistent and receive the Pfizer booster. Individuals 18 and older may receive any U.S.-approved booster