Some surgeries are delayed and patients are being relocated by the state as Utah’s intensive care units fill up amid an increase in coronavirus cases.
“There are full ones and then there are more,” said Dr. Brandon Webb, an Intermountain Healthcare doctor. Webb said healthcare system volumes “exceed 100%.”
“In many cases, we lack these emergency beds and we can’t provide immediate care in the same way,” Webb said.
That means hospitals are once again delaying some surgeries, especially those that pose a high risk and may require ICU care in the event of complications, Webb said.
According to the Utah Department of Health, as of Thursday, there were 467 patients hospitalized with COVID-19 and 184 of these were in intensive care, the highest number since January.
The seven-day average of positive tests rose to 1,176 per day, the highest figure since February 5. Another 1,286 Utahns tested positive for COVID-19 on the last day and 250 of them, approximately 1 in 5, were school-age children.
Eight more Utahns died of coronavirus the other day. Half were under 65 and one was under 45.
The ICUs of Utah’s major “referral” hospitals were 91 percent on Thursday, exceeding the 85 percent threshold, where ICUs can still guarantee admission to emergency patients, Webb said.
That doesn’t mean patients are sidelined, he said. But they are being transferred to other hospitals in the state, said Jess Gomez, a spokeswoman for Intermountain, for example, from St. George’s to Salt Lake County.
“This is happening a lot more because of the capacity,” Gomez said.
Some lung and brain surgeries, at least those unrelated to cancer, are being postponed, especially if there are other treatments that can affect the patient until the beds are more available, said Dr. Rob Ferguson, director senior doctor of surgical operations at Intermountain.
Meanwhile, non-ICU beds are also being depleted, so priority is given to patients who need lower-risk procedures based on the urgency of the operation and whether there are other options.
“Unfortunately, there are some back spine procedures, some kind of reconstruction procedures, total joint procedures, in all our specialties: spine, orthopedics, plastic surgery, [ear nose throat] – They all have different types of procedures that they have to postpone for another day, ”Ferguson said.
Doctors are also evaluating patients who should normally be admitted after the procedures, to determine if they are low enough to “qualify to return home the same day,” Ferguson said.
The problem isn’t just the COVID-19 cases that overwhelmed hospitals, Webb said. This was the case last winter, when coronavirus patients accounted for more than 30% of ICU patients, a percentage of “unpublished” patients who were in critical condition for a single cause, doctors said at the time. .
There are different issues at stake now, Webb said. First, hospitals have fewer doctors and nurses than last year, which means capacity is lower.
“We may have physical space, but we don’t have staff like last winter,” Webb said. “The difference this year is that we have insufficient staff, especially in nursing, but also in other health workers,” such as respiratory therapists and other specialists.
These workers were “significantly impacted by the toll that has cared for patients with COVID,” Webb said. “We’ve lost a lot of people who have really retired from health care.”
Meanwhile, there are more patients who do not have coronavirus in the ICU this year than last year, Webb said. There are more traumatic patients in particular, Gomez said.
Last summer, Gomez said, “people weren’t out of the way they usually are” because they delayed travel and recreation plans to protect themselves from COVID-19.
Now people have resumed the activities that normally make summer a busy season in hospitals, and that means there is less room for coronavirus patients.
Finally, there are many patients whose symptoms were not checked last year because they were trying to avoid medical consultations because of the coronavirus, Ferguson said. As these patients return to their doctors, they are creating a series of diagnoses that in previous years would have been more widespread.
“Patients endured things they would normally have seen at their provider,” Ferguson said. “Patients, for example, have been held back from going to the doctor for abdominal pain and find they need something with their gallbladder. Either they postponed colonoscopies or screening mammograms and found they needed a procedure.”
The total number of Utahns hospitalized with the coronavirus since the pandemic began has exceeded 20,000.
Dose of vaccines administered last day / total doses administered • 7,881 / 3,229,046.
Fully vaccinated Utahns • 1,564,511, or 47.8% of the total population of Utah.
Cases reported last day • 1,176. This includes 110 children aged 5 to 10 years; 62 children aged 11 to 13; and 78 children aged 14 to 18 years.
Deaths reported last day • Eight. In Utah County there were three deaths: a man between the ages of 25 and 44, a man between the ages of 45 and 64 and a woman between the ages of 65 and 84.
Salt Lake County reported two deaths: a woman aged 45 to 64 and a man aged 65 to 84. The other deaths were a Davis County man aged 45 to 64, a Wasatch County woman from 65 to 84 years and a man from Weber County 65-84.
In the past four weeks, unvaccinated Utahs were five times more likely to die from COVID-19 than vaccinated people, according to a UDOH analysis. Unvaccinated people were also 6.2 times more likely to be hospitalized and 4.9 times more likely to test positive for coronavirus.
Tests reported last day • 8,953 people were tested for the first time. A total of 15,634 people were tested.
Hospitalizations reported last day • 463. They are eight less than on Wednesday. Of those currently hospitalized, 185 are in intensive care, four less than on Wednesday.
Percentage of positive tests • According to the original method of the state, the rate is 13.1%. This is lower than the seven-day average of 15.4%.
The new state method counts all test results, including repeated tests by the same individual. Wednesday’s rate was 7.5%, down from the seven-day average of 10.8%.
[Read more: Utah is changing how it measures the rate of positive COVID-19 tests. Here’s what that means.]
Total so far • 459,875 cases; 2,623 dead; 20,006 hospitalizations; 3,106,951 people tested.