(Photo AP / Elaine Thompson, file)
Although the state reached its initial 70% vaccination target in July, health experts now say we need to aim higher if we want to stop the delta variant.
This is because the delta variant is much more contagious than previous strains, said Dr. Mark Johnson, who specializes in infectious diseases at Wenatchee’s Confluence Health.
“Even though people would have heard before,‘ Well, we need about 67% of us or we’re totally vaccinated, ’of the entire population, not eligible people, now that math has changed a lot,” Johnson said during the ‘Washington State Hospital Monday Briefing of the Association. “And so we’re talking now about 85 to 90% of people who need to be completely vaccinated, depending on the transmission of the delta variant at this time.”
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Johnson called the variant a “game changer” and predicted that unless enough people are vaccinated, COVID-19 will not go away.
“We are asking the immune system of fully vaccinated people to do too much for our communities,” he said. “And we can reasonably predict that until we get vaccinated enough, this virus will continue to mutate, … continue to go around our communities and continue to infect susceptible populations for the next 12 to 18 months at these pandemic levels.”
The vast majority of people in the state’s ICUs with COVID are not vaccinated, so doctors say a higher level of vaccination will ease the strain of overflowing hospitals right now. The vaccine not only makes a person much less likely to get COVID-19, but also, in the very rare cases that occur, almost always prevents the severe symptoms that can land a person in the hospital.
“The hospital crisis was totally preventable,” said MultiCare medical director and senior vice president Dr. David Carlson. “If we had had 100% vaccination in our communities, we would have 10 to 12 people in our hospitals with COVID [right now], as opposed to 275 “.
Unfortunately, some of these patients are pregnant women about to give birth, a normally cheerful occasion that becomes full of sadness when it occurs in an ICU full of COVID patients.
“We’re seeing ICU admissions, we’re seeing maternal deaths,” said Dr. Tanya Sorensen, an OB / GYN who works in maternal care at the Swedish hospital. “We see babies being born prematurely, either to help the mother breathe or to rescue him because the mother is hypoxic.”
Sorensen said pregnant women get sick and have more severe symptoms than ever before the pandemic (he could not specify how many), as their vaccination rate tends to be lower than that of the general public. , about 40%. Unfortunately, some of this is due to misinformation, such as the misconception that the vaccine causes a woman to become infertile. Sorensen stressed that the vaccine is safe for pregnant women.
“There are no reasons why pregnant women should not be vaccinated,” Sorensen said. “The vaccine does not cause infertility.”
He advised any woman he was expecting and who has not yet had the shot to do so as soon as possible, so that he could be there to watch his son grow up.
“It’s heartbreaking to spend the day in the ICU caring for pregnant women and those who don’t get it and maybe they will leave their babies without a mother,” Sorensen said.
Complete Washington hospitals also mean the cancellation of non-urgent procedures. And Carlson said this doesn’t just mean a facelift, but it’s people waiting with unbearable pain for a hip replacement or those who need a reverse colonoscopy.
“We are canceling everything we can that is happening in our hospitals, just so we can have staff,” he said. “Therefore, unless you are likely to be harmed or unduly distressed by surgery in the next 30 to 60 days, we will cancel it and do it weekly. This is, frankly, the most severe restriction on cancellations. and surgeries that we have had to start since it started ”.
Dr. Carlson noted that New Orleans would be affected by Hurricane Ida and wondered how Washington would handle a similar disaster when hospitals are already full.
“We all knew there would be a fifth wave of COVID, but I don’t think any of us imagined it would be that fifth wave,” Carlson said. “In my career I have never cared about the way I now care about the challenges of our suppliers and our systems, and the real possibility that we are on the brink of not being able to serve people properly. In the community.” .