HSHS is recording milestone records for COVID-19 and it’s not a good thing. A record of 303 patients are currently hospitalized and being treated for COVID-19. This breaks the previous record of 293 in November 2020 before a vaccine was available. HSHS has also reported seven deaths with six of those seven unvaccinated. There are currently 9 covid pediatric patients in HSHS Hospitals.
Dr. Marc Shelton, vice president, and chief physician executive of HSHS. is encouraging all to get vaccinated. He is concerned about testing being available.
Dr. Shelton encourages to not go to the Emergency Room for just a COVID test.
Interim CEO and Chief Nursing Officer at St. Johns Hospital in Springfield, Allison Paul, says that nurses are exhausted.
Paul urges everyone to not take this lightly. The last thing you want, Paul says, is to end up in the hospital. Getting a vaccine can go a long way to lowering those symptoms.
As of January 7th, 76% of those hospitalized are unvaccinated, 80% in the ICU are unvaccinated, and 84% on ventilators are unvaccinated. For more information on HSHS, visit www.hshs.org.
