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In a week when coronavirus cases were already on the rise, the situation became even more threatening on Friday when the county health department announced it had informed of 1,264 new cases, the largest one-day spike since February 5, when the Winter vacations had risen to fill local hospitals.
The number signifies a worrying new reality as it was Wednesday 717. The number of new positive test notifications nearly doubled in just one day.
While the group of residents now sick is largely unvaccinated, officials also say they are younger than they have been with previous seizures, meaning they are healthier overall and have fewer fatal complications. But that doesn’t mean that everyone should avoid the hospital.
Dimitrios Alexiou, president of the Hospital Association of San Diego and Imperial Counties, said Friday afternoon that the total number of COVID-19 positive patients in local hospitals had risen sharply. Last Friday, he said, 148 people with COVID-19 were in beds, but the number rose to 241 on Friday, a number that, unlike the county numbers, includes local medical centers run by the federal government.
Sharp HealthCare, the largest healthcare provider in the region, is expected to have seen the largest increase. Brett McClain, Sharp’s chief operating officer, said Friday night that all Sharp hospitals had taken a COVID-19 count 10 days ago in the mid-30s, but that number rose to 75.
While the surge is not yet big enough to create widespread pressure on more staff, the executive said it was demoralizing to see COVID-19 come back through the door.
“There’s a real sense of fear and ‘oh my god we’re going to have to go through this again,'” said McClain. “The biggest concern I have both in the short and long term is the significant burnout that this type of care causes.”
Asking environmental services personnel to clean COVID-19 rooms with no vaccine available during a pandemic is one thing, he said, but making the same request with shots available for months is something entirely different. Some, he said, simply refused to come in any more.
“There are a lot of people who say, ‘Are you kidding? I’m not ready for that anymore, ‘”said McClain.
Dr. Marlene Millen, a general practitioner at UC San Diego Health and a leader in the university’s vaccination efforts, said she noticed the massive surge in positive test results Thursday and spoke to many of her patients on the phone. She had asked them many times before to get vaccinated and they simply hadn’t made appointments. She said she was more surprised to call those who didn’t have regular doctors identified. These young and healthy people, she said, seemed completely apathetic about their injections.
These seem to be the people who do not consume traditional media, with social media and person-to-person communication being the main ways to receive and respond to messages.
“We have this population out there who aren’t really thinking about getting a vaccine,” she said. “The people who said no at least had their reasons, but these other people all sound like they would have, if offered or made it easier for them.”
It’s a hard-to-imagine scenario with more than 400 free vaccination centers across the country and non-stop vaccination talks pretty much everywhere, but the doctor said even the biggest burst of information can miss some trail.
“You can extend the megaphone, but if it’s not pointed in the right place it won’t happen,” she said.
Public health officials are continuing to urge the area’s 556,305 remaining unvaccinated residents, ages 12 and older, to get injected now as a significantly more transmissible version of the virus called the Delta variant is causing a fourth wave of infections nationwide.
Another 150,000 are eligible for second shots but have not yet received them, exposing them to the Delta-powered threat. First discovered in India, the variant withstands levels of immunity conferred by single doses of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines.
District overseer chairman Nathan Fletcher released a statement Friday afternoon calling the surge a “pandemic of the unvaccinated.”
“The vast majority of cases come from unvaccinated people, and they are responsible for almost all hospital admissions,” Fletcher said. “The way to slow the rise and protect yourself is to trust your doctor and get a vaccine.”
Supervisor Jim Desmond, often Fletcher’s slide on the district board, released his own statement Friday with a very similar message.
“Recent data clearly shows that the chances of getting sick are lower when you are given the vaccine,” said Desmond. If you’ve stood on the fence or waiting for the vaccine, it’s time; This vaccine will keep us from shaking our economy again and will protect lives! “
As in recent weeks, the health department is warning that the unvaccinated population bears the brunt of Delta’s fearsome power. From June 21 to July 20, 89 percent of 6,572 people who tested positive for coronavirus infection were unvaccinated or partially vaccinated.
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