COLUMBUS – Governor Mike DeWine and the leaders in the Ohio’s battle against COVID-19 are warning of a large increase in the number of people hospitalized due to the disease.
“We can’t sound the alarm bell loud enough,” said Dr. Andy Thomas of the OSU Wexner Medical Center and coordinator of hospital operations in the 36-county area than includes central Ohio.
Data from the Ohio Department of Health shows there are more than 4,300 people currently in the hospital in Ohio with COVID-19 related symptoms, including more than 570 on ventilators, raising the possibility that elective procedures could be postponed.
“In the next few weeks, every hospital in the state is going to have to start making some tough decisions about how it will staff its beds, about what elective, non-emergency things it’s going to have to postpone,” Thomas said.
Hospitals in the area, designated as healthcare Zone 2 in the state’s plan for deploying hospital resources, had over 900 patients in hospitals, more than twice as many as on Nov. 2, Thomas reported.
Similar concerns were expressed by the three other lead hospital officials.
Zone 1, which covers Cleveland, Toledo and northern Ohio, is experiencing an increase in caregivers contracting the disease.
Dr. Robert Wyllie, chief of medical operations at the Cleveland Clinic, says the growing numbers of hospitalizations is complicated by a shortage of nearly 1,000 clinic health care workers, either because they have the coronavirus or they’re under quarantine.
“Within the Cleveland Clinic system, alone, we had 970 caregivers out due to coronavirus,” said Wyllie, who is the Zone 1 lead coordinator.
Zone 3, which includes Cincinnati and Dayton, has seen an increase in cases and hospitalizations and the surge is taking a toll on doctors, nurses and other caregivers, said Dr. Richard Lofgren, president and CEO of UC Health.
Hospitals in Ohio’s rural counties – many of which have seen the most dramatic increases in cases in the past few weeks – are feeling the burden of trying to keep pace with the explosion of case DeWine likens to a “runaway freight train.”
“The number of coronavirus patients who require hospitalizations are happening at a faster rate than we are discharging them. The ability to discharge patients safely with adequate care, such as providing oxygen or skilled nursing home placement, is also burdened,” said Ronda Lehman, PharmD, president of Mercy Health, which operates 23 hospitals in Ohio and Kentucky.
The state reported nearly 12,000 new cases Monday, almost twice the average number of daily cases reported over the most recent three-week period, but DeWine says the increase was due to an electronic lab reporting technology issue.
Data from the Cleveland Clinic and Mercy Health labs was not processed for two preceding days and was included in the report, he said.
In total, there are 363,304 confirmed and probable cases of COVID-19 reported in Ohio, according to the state. Since the pandemic began eight months ago, 6,020 Ohioans have died.
There were 282 additional hospitalizations on Monday. Over 30% of the state’s hospital inpatient capacity is occupied by COVID-19 patients.
The seven-day average positivity rate for Ohio is 13.5%.