COVID-19 HOSPITALIZATION UPDATE
Not since July 4 has EAMC had as few as 34 patients hospitalized with COVID-19, but that’s the case today as well as yesterday. The number of patients on a ventilator remains steady at seven.
“July was a very busy month and our employees on several nursing units exceeded their normal number of hours in order to care for our patients,” said John Atkinson, EAMC spokesman. “With the decline in COVID-19 cases right now, we’re going to do all we can in the next couple of weeks to provide some time off to as many as possible so they can relax a little and be refreshed should another spike in cases occur.”
LESSONS LEARNED AFTER THE SECOND COVID-19 PEAK (see graph)
by Ricardo Maldonado, M.D.
After recovering now from our second peak, there are lessons we have learned. There were many factors that contributed to having a higher peak than the first one. Thankfully, better treatment strategies and formidable efforts on the COVID-19 floor (7T) prevented many patients from even going to the ICU. And for those who did have to go to ICU, our treatment efforts helped quite a few avoid being put on a ventilator. Read the full article here: https://bit.ly/3gz6xhc
TESTING VOLUMES AND POSITIVITY RATES DECLINE
Wednesday and Thursday saw a reduction at the drive-thru testing site. A total of 165 tests were completed and only 14 patients were positive, for a positivity rate of 8.4 percent. Those figures are all lower than Monday and Tuesday when 213 patients were tested and 24 were positive, an 11.2 percent positivity rate.
At the Auburn University Medical Clinic, they tested 381 people on Wednesday and Thursday, with only 26 being positive, a 6.8 percent positivity rate. That compares to 409 on Monday and Tuesday when 24 were positive, for a 5.9 percent positivity rate. In the Emergency Department at EAMC, only 2 of the 23 patients admitted on Thursday were positive for COVID-19.