COVID-19 patients – largely unvaccinated – are straining Wisconsin hospitals. Dr. Ashok Rai, president and CEO of Prevea Health.
“The majority of what’s overwhelming us right now . . . of the intubated patients, the ICU patients are the unvaccinated,” Dr. Ashok Rai, president and CEO of Prevea Health said Thursday. “We know statistically speaking that they’re going to be sicker, despite the therapeutics that we have available to us today. They are the ones that are using not only the highest amount of resources, but staying the longest.”
New coronavirus infections in Wisconsin – mainly of the Delta variant – are as high as they were last December. A record number of hospitalized COVID patients are on ventilators.
Your #COVID19_WI update shows nearly 5,100 new cases reported yesterday, and a 7-day average of more than 3,000 cases. Please take steps to protect yourself and your community and #StopTheSpread: https://t.co/azIna3TqRR pic.twitter.com/qXHyeGQKjU
— WIDeptHealthServices (@DHSWI) December 2, 2021
A wave of mostly unvaccinated COVID-19 patients are straining hospital resources across Wisconsin. Health Services Secretary designee Karen Timberlake
“On average, people who are unvaccinated are nine times more likely to be hospitalized than are people who have been vaccinated. And I believe the latest data is that people who are unvaccinated are dying at a rate that is eleven times greater than people who have been vaccinated.” Department of Health Services Secretary designee Karen Timberlake said.
Ninety-seven percent of intensive care beds in the state are being used currently, and there are no ICU beds available in some parts of Wisconsin.
The latest coronavirus variant has yet to be detected in Wisconsin. But Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Ryan Westergaard says there’s a one-to-two week lag in genome sequence testing.
“So it it is possible, perhaps likely, that the Omicron variant is circulating more widely in the United States, and it will take some time for us to detect it, and we’ll report that when we do,” Westergaard said.
Minnesota reported the nation’s second confirmed Omicron case on Thursday – a man who recently returned from a trip to New York City.