Hospitals are crunched. Medical care is suffering. COVID-19’s rate of infection is rising.
And January in Oklahoma is shaping up to continue worsening.
Dr. Jennifer Clark’s weekly COVID-19 session for Project ECHO on Wednesday laid out what projects to be a difficult and deadly month as limited batches of vaccinations make it out each week from the federal government.
Monthly statewide records were shattered in December for new cases, active cases, hospitalizations and deaths.
“January is already stacking up to be a pretty significant month,” Clark said. “My guess is we’ll probably see doubling of most of our numbers.”
There were 746 deaths reported in December, up 84% from 406 in November and up 144% from 306 in October. There were 4,801 hospitalizations, up 43% from 3,369 in November and up 97% from 2,440 in October.
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The state reported Wednesday a single-day record of 68 people who died from COVID, only a day after a record 1,994 confirmed positive people were in Oklahoma hospitals.
There were back-to-back days of 300-plus COVID-19 admissions this week, totaling 639 — the highest two-day total since 633 to end December.
On average, 26 Oklahomans are being reported dead each day of COVID. In Tulsa County, the average is five deaths per day.
Dr. Aaron Wendelboe, former state epidemiologist, on Tuesday highlighted that COVID-19 has become the third leading cause of death in Oklahoma, behind only heart disease and cancer.
Wendelboe spoke during the Healthier Oklahoma Coalition’s weekly virtual news conference. He cautioned that the full effects of the holiday season aren’t known yet, especially with new case averages artificially depressed because of testing lulls and reporting lags.
“Fortunately our influenza season continues to be light; we have not had any influenza-related deaths yet this season,” Wendelboe said. “COVID, in just an average (flu) season, kills 10 times as many people as the flu. For this season, COVID has killed 1,500 times as many people as the flu.
“We recognize the flu season isn’t over yet, but it just really puts things into perspective that these mitigation efforts help prevent influenza, they help prevent COVID. COVID would be a lot worse if we didn’t do them.”
Clark, an expert on health care delivery sciences and former hospital administrator, said that the average percentage of patients with COVID in hospitals has doubled since November to 30% from 15%.
“Again, a trend that’s not sustainable,” she said.
Clark pointed to 6,241 patients in medical-surgical and ICU beds Thursday to emphasize that the patient load was 568 more than the 5,673 staffed beds identified in October after a statewide census of hospitals.
Or, put another way, there were 6,940 staffed beds reported Thursday. So hospitals have improvised and scrambled to materialize another 1,267 staffed beds over the October survey’s total just to keep pace with the ongoing surge.
Clark noted that 1,961 of the 6,241 inpatients Thursday were infected with COVID — hovering just below the record 1,994 set this week.
“So you can see that our hospitals are not only full based on regular hospital folks who get sick in the wintertime, but now we have COVID on top of it,” Clark said. “It’s almost overtaking our ability to take care of folks.”
Clark said trends indicate the eastern half of the state is beginning to bear a greater burden of the disease after having a lesser load the prior two months.
She said the country’s R-naught — the average number of people infected by one infectious person — is between 0.9 and 1.5. In Oklahoma, that figure is between 2.0 and 3.0.
“Now is that because we have more cases? Likely,” Clark said. “Is it because we may have this new variant? Possibly.”
The United Kingdom mutation of the virus has been identified in Colorado, Texas, Georgia, California, New York, Florida, Connecticut and Pennsylvania. Clark said it’s likely already in Oklahoma.
The variant is up to 70% more transmissible, she said, and appears to infect more people younger than 20 years old than the original virus.
Clark originally projected more than 10,000 Oklahomans ages 65 and above would be infected in December.
The final number now: 15,630.
“Big number; that’s not likely to change,” Clark said. “It’s only going to get worse in January.
“The reason why that group is important is because they represent the large majority of our hospitalizations.”
Project ECHO, or Extension for Community Health Care Outcomes, was founded to allow health care providers to consult with specialists via video teleconferencing. It has expanded to dozens of disease and treatment areas in more than 100 countries.
Oklahoma national rankings
Oklahoma's rate of COVID-19 hospitalizations per inpatient bed has ranked either worst or second worst in the country each day since Dec. 17, when the federal government first made the data available publicly.
The state has been firmly entrenched with the worst test positivity rate every day since Dec. 18.
Its new case rate per capita has bounced between No. 1 and No. 11 in the same time frame, with the death rate per capita ranked between 16th and 41st.
Source: White House Coronavirus Task Force
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