The Chicago Journal

Hospitals still filled despite a dropping number of patients

Edward Anderson Edward Anderson on March 20, 2023

Hospitals – The 2020 Covid-19 outbreak resulted in serious issues since US hospitals were overrun with sick people.

Patients regularly filled the hallways and rooms due to the high patient volume.

However, vaccinations have helped to lessen the problem.

Despite the virus’ lower danger, hospitals in the US are nonetheless congested.

Winter recovery

The COVID-19, the flu, and RSV posed a triple danger to the US during the winter.

As a sign that the country has been healing, the majority of states now report little to no activity in respiratory diseases.

According to government statistics, there have been 30% fewer visits to emergency departments for respiratory conditions since January.

The number of flu-related hospitalizations is almost at its lowest point since October.

4% of hospital beds are still occupied by patients statewide, notwithstanding a recent reduction in Covid-19 admissions.

A shift

The new data reveals a dramatic change between January 2022 and the first Omicron wave, when Covid-19 patients overran hospitals.

However, the situation is still packed in hospitals, and it doesn’t appear that things will improve any time soon.

Experts claim that hospitals already struggled with capacity and resource challenges since patients were sicker than ever before to the epidemic.

According to Nancy Foster, vice president for patient safety and quality at the American Hospital Association:

“It’s been a continuing trend over the last decade or so that there’s been this greater acuity of patients inside the hospitals.”

“So what you see is this incredibly sick group of people inside of hospitals.”

“If you’re a doctor or nurse or respiratory therapist or pharmacist or any other health professional working inside the hospital, that means it’s always a difficult puzzle you’re trying to solve to help that patient out.”

Factors

The patient mix at hospitals is comparable to pre-pandemic levels, according to Aaron Wesolowski, vice president of policy research, analytics, and strategy at the American Hospital Association.

According to Foster, if the number of Covid-19 patients decreases, so too could the stress on medical personnel, which at first felt resentful of the limited resources available to help them.

Read also: Teenagers using social media should be older than 13

However, according to Wesolowski’s analysis of Strata data, fewer people attended inpatient and emergency departments in 2022 than they did in 2019.

Experts claim that several complex issues grew worse during the course of the epidemic, taxing the available resources.

“Length of stay is longer because people are needing more acute care,” said Wesolowski.

“Because of work force pressures, there are not as many people who can be treated in an inpatient setting all at once.”

“So both things, I think, can be true.”

Samuel Scarpino, the director of Northeastern University’s AI and life sciences department, believes that the current situation is characterized by a “perfect storm” of issues, including the following:

  • Covid-19 and ongoing control measures hospital use to keep in place
  • A backlog of patients with a delayed need for acute care
  • A workforce that’s burnt out after three years of the pandemic

Covid-19, according to Scarpino, is still the most crucial component.

Instead of building additional hospital beds because a new type increases hospitalizations, hospitals must create extra beds as a safety net due to uncertainty.

“The biggest risk is almost certainty associated with what’s coming,” said Scarpino.

Flexibilities

The declaration of a pandemic emergency, according to Nancy Foster, permitted patients to use telehealth services outside of hospitals.

The emergency status has been continuously renewed by the federal government since January 2020, although it is believed that it will terminate in May.

Without the announcement, hospitals would likely have been busier than they are now, especially since the range of treatment options available outside of hospitals might once again become more limited.

“Part of the reason we have the kind of inpatient hospital scarcity that we have right now is that we do have a number of flexibilities that were granted by [the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services] and other federal agencies and the states during Covid that are being used for a wide variety of patients,” said Foster.

“If those were to disappear overnight, we would be struggling to care for the current level of patients.”

Image source: Vox

Children susceptible to more illness if codetection finds Covid and another virus

Leah Cooper Leah Cooper on January 30, 2023

Image source: Healthier, Happier Lives Blog

Children: There is still a lot to learn about the fatal virus, despite the fact that it has stalled since the 2020 Covid-19 epidemic.

Even now, researchers are working to better comprehend the virus.

According to a recent study, children under the age of five who test positive for another respiratory virus typically get worse.

They also get more illnesses.

According to research published on Wednesday in the journal Pediatrics, hospitalized children under the age of five who test positive for both Covid and other respiratory viruses have a doubled risk of developing serious respiratory diseases.

The study

When RSV, flu, Covid-19, and other respiratory infections filled children’s hospitals, research was conducted.

The results demonstrate the impact such viruses have on pediatric hospitals.

It also demonstrates how ongoing monitoring of Covid-19 and other viruses in circulation might aid in projecting future spikes in hospitalization.

Researchers from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as well as from other institutions and health agencies around the country, conducted the study.

Firsthand account

Caring for children with overlapping respiratory conditions may be difficult, as Jenevieve Silva discovered throughout the pandemic.

Silva is a mother of eight and resides in San Jose, California.

She has had to cope with a slew of illnesses since her twin boys, who are toddlers, started preschool in May 2021.

“The height of the illness was from September through mid-November, when our household just could not catch a break,” she said.

Her twins tested positive for Covid-19 in October 2022.

Their pediatrician eventually diagnosed them with what they later developed as having another respiratory disease, perhaps a respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV.

“Based on what the pediatrician told us, she said, ‘I highly believe that they had these overlapping viruses,'” said Silva.

She also mentioned the following symptoms with the boys:

  • Shortness of breath
  • Cough
  • Fatigue
  • Fever

In addition, one twin developed a temperature of 105 degrees for four days in a row.

Jenevieve Silva said watching her boys suffer was heartbreaking, despite the warm baths and Vicks VaporRub on their backs and chests helped them manage the discomfort.

“They had just looked so frail – they looked sick, like something deeper than back-to-back viruses,” noted Silva.

“It was hell. I mean, it was really bad.”

Read also: Covid-19 surges among senior citizens or ‘senior waves’

Aftermath

The boys of Jenevieve Silva have now recovered from the illnesses.

Although they are doing better today and have put on healthy weight, she is still concerned that their fevers may have caused them to develop asthma.

The doctor stated it appeared to have possibly induced asthma since October when the twins had overlapping infections, added Silva.

They then start to have asthma symptoms like coughing and possibly throwing up if they get a cold.

“I can’t be the only mom dealing with virus after virus,” Silva said.

“Be patient. Listen to your doctor.”

Data

The most recent research contains data on 4,372 kids who were hospitalized with Covid-19.

21% of individuals who were tested for other respiratory viruses had a codetection, meaning that additional viruses were also found in their test findings.

Researchers remarked that rather than coinfection, they were concentrating on codetection.

The child may not have been actively sick despite testing positive for the two viruses.

According to the study, detections of respiratory viruses were few throughout the first year of the pandemic.

While influenza codetections were scarce during the first two years of the pandemic, RSV and rhinovirus (or enterovirus) codetections surged during the Delta-predominant era.

The data showed that children with codetections were mostly younger than five.

Additionally, they were more likely to be admitted to critical care units and get increased oxygen support.

When children under two test positive for RSV while receiving Covid, they frequently develop serious illnesses.

Pandemic lessons

Dr. Ascuncion Mejias, an associate professor of pediatric infectious diseases at Nationwide Children’s Hospital, said that the children she treated with Covid-19 and other viral codetections frequently required critical care and oxygen support.

“Covid is a very proinflammatory virus, so it really weakens your immune response,” said Mejias.

“And when you haven’t recovered yet, and you get a second hit, in this case, RSV or rhinovirus, you develop a more severe disease.”

The new study’s results, according to Dr. William Schaffner, a professor at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center’s Division of Infectious Disease, highlight the significance of keeping children up to date on their vaccines.

Mejias added her two cents, emphasizing the significance of safe procedures to prevent diseases from spreading to infants who are too young to get vaccinations.

“The pandemic taught us how contagious these viruses are,” said Mejias. “If somebody is sick, try to avoid contact.”

“These viruses are not only transmitted by saliva and secretions, but by hands. It can survive in your hands for more than 30 minutes.”

“So if you touch your mouth and then touch a little baby, the baby can self inoculate the virus and become infected.”

“So washing hands and all these measures are very important.”

Reference:

When young children test positive for Covid-19 and another respiratory virus, their illness may be much more severe, a new study suggests