“We are experiencing a surge like never before in terms of patients coming,” Memorial Healthcare System’s Chief Med Officer Dr. Marc Napp stated Wednesday at a Hollywood news conference.
Napp stated that they have opened 250 additional beds at Memorial’s six hospitals located in Broward County.
Napp said that patients with other conditions are seeking treatment now, as opposed to last year’s COVID surges, when many people were unable to go to hospitals because they were afraid of contracting the virus.
More than 1,600 people were admitted to the hospital for overnight stays on Wednesday. The average number of inpatients the system has under its care is around 1,400.
He said, “This is the largest number of patients Memorial’s ever seen.” It’s not the sheer volume of patients coming in simultaneously. Napp stated that there are only so many beds and so many doctors and so many nurses.
On Wednesday, Florida saw more than 12,000 COVID-19 patients admitted to hospital. Nearly 2,500 were admitted to ICU. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that there were more than 50,000 COVID-19 new cases in Florida over a three-day period. This makes the average seven-day count one of the highest since the pandemic. The state has now seen 39,179 deaths and more than 2.6million cases.
Gov. Ron DeSantis rejected calls to make it mandatory that everyone wear masks indoors in accordance with CDC recommendations. This is until the CDC recommends that vaccination rates rise significantly. According to the Republican leader, it is up to each person to decide whether they want to get shots or not. In the meantime, it is important to keep Florida’s economy afloat.
“Florida, a free country, will give its citizens the tools they need. “We will not allow Joe Biden’s bureaucratic flunkies in to take over the rights and freedoms Floridians,” DeSantis said Wednesday night in a fundraising email. DeSantis has been looking into the possibility of running in the 2024 presidential election.
Napp stated that patients receiving treatment for COVID-19 at Memorial are largely unvaccinated.
COVID-19 vaccines are designed to prevent severe illness, death and even permanent disability. However, none of them is 100% effective. Public health experts expect a few “breakthrough” cases, which could result in milder infections. Some of the people who were sickened by this latest surge did not take all necessary precautions.
Fort Lauderdale residents Doug and Judi Custer claimed they followed all instructions to prevent the virus from spreading. Both were vaccinated, and they continued to use masks at the grocery stores even after mandates were lifted.
Judi Custer, 75 years old, didn’t think too much about it when she got a sore throat just a few weeks back. She said that even with her fever and cough, it never occurred to her that COVID could be the cause.
Her husband, an 80-year old man, also suffered from a severe headache, chills, and a cough. After a friend told her that some people she had been in touch with recently tested positive for COVID, she went to an urgent care center to get tested. Her husband declined.
The test was positive and she was stunned. Her husband’s health rapidly deteriorated. He was unable to breathe for five days and was admitted to the hospital where he was put on oxygen.
Although she felt better, she was still concerned about her husband, a retired teacher. She was not permitted to visit her husband because hospitals were now full. Their daughter flew home to assist.
Continue to be careful and cautious, and take every precaution you can. In a telephone interview, she stated that even if you believe you are immune to COVID, it is still possible to contract it.
She said, “It’s all about you if it’s not you,” while sitting next to her husband who is still breathing and gradually regaining strength. “You make it harder for others, and to get us back into normalcy in our country.”
“The immunizations are there. It has been around for a long time so we know that it helps people, even if they are sick. “I was not hospitalized. It’s less likely that you will get it as severe.
