Eric Deaton, chief operating officer/incident commander opens today’s media briefing: We see a continued escalation of cases. Right now, 43% of positive cases tested at Ballad Health are under the age of 18.
Deaton: What concerns me the most on today’s Scorecard is that we’ve seen 31 deaths just in the past 7-days. We’re testing almost 2,000 people a day internally at Ballad Health.
Deaton: Today, we have 281 patients in the hospital but the concerning thing is that we have 22 patients under investigation, that brings us to over 300 patients being cared for in-house at Ballad Health.
Deaton: We have 71 in ICU, 49 of which are on ventilators. That’s our highest number of ventilator use ever. These are records we don’t want to break.
Deaton: We have 9 pediatric patients being cared for at @NiswongerCHosp. That directly relates to the patients we’re seeing test positive. Last week that average was around 35%, today it’s 43%.
Deaton: We’re up to 5,063 cases this week; almost our highest compared to last January. 57% of the in-house patients are between the ages of 40-69; overall average age of unvaccinated patient is 58.8.
Deaton: 39% of the @AppHighlands region has been fully vaccinated now.
Deaton: When we look at the modeling, next week we believe we’ll be at 400 patients and another week out, probably right at 500. Our projection is that we could go from 55 deaths a week to over 100 deaths in one week, on a per week basis.
Deaton: Starting tomorrow, Aug. 26, we will be postponing all elective and non-emergency surgeries, even those that have been previously scheduled.
Deaton: We have to plan for our worst-case scenario, as volumes continue to shift from surgical needs to COVID-19 admissions and other urgent medical conditions.
Deaton: This was a tough decision, but it was necessary for us to continue providing care that’s safe for patients and team members. Given the limitations on available staffing, it has been necessary to take these steps to ensure the safest possible environment.