It’s a new year, but the sudden increase in Thanksgiving has spread to 2021 and now doctors are holding their breath to see a week after Christmas how another increase could potentially be
“We’re still seeing Thanksgiving numbers and that’s really why it’s so scary. We haven’t seen Christmas numbers yet and we haven’t seen New Year for sure,” said Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, an expert on infectious diseases of UCSF.
An increase in cases after three holidays at the same time can mean extreme stress for the medical system. Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, from UCSF, says they are still waiting for more data.
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“That’s because a lot of people are closed for holidays in terms of labs, so they are not reporting these numbers until people reopen next week. Chin-Hong.
In March, medical experts met to discuss a response plan for an unprecedented increase in cases. Dr. Peter Chin-Hong says that these meetings have equipped them for what could happen in the coming weeks.
“We were all getting together to decide how to divide the fans, if we had enough fans in the region and how to make some of these difficult decisions about who should enter the hospital in the ICU and who should not, depending on whether or not they will. decision rules that were divided by these groups at the beginning in two weeks or more, “said Dr. Chin-Hong.
At Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital, Dr. Colwell said this week that he had the highest number of COVID-19 cases in the past 10 months, with 52 cases at the peak.
“So it was a predictable pattern of 10 days to 2 weeks where you will see people starting to get sick, symptoms, 5 days after the holidays,” said Dr. Christopher Colwell, Head of Emergency Medicine at General Hospital and Trauma Zuckerberg SF Centro.
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Dr. Colwell reported on the first COVID-19 cases of Christmas parties this week and began to implement his emergency plan.
“We opened a new floor that was only for COVID patients and that meant that we are more limited in terms of any elective procedures and surgeries will be more limited to really urgent and emerging surgeries,” said Dr. Colwell.
As Chief of Emergency Medicine at Zuckerberg General Hospital, Dr. Colwell is concerned about the impact that another potential increase could have on his team.
#COVID-19 | The holidays are over, but doctors are now reporting the first cases of COVID-19 from Christmas parties.
Dr. Colwell said that they started to implement their emergency plan at Zuckerberg SF General:
“We opened a new floor that was only for COVID patients ..”@ abc7newsbayarea pic.twitter.com/toUDEhpIRM
– Luz Peña (@ LuzPenaABC7) January 3, 2021
“A lot of my time now is trying to resolve this issue with all of our employees who have been doing this for 10 months and, honestly, we are all exhausted,” said Dr. Colwell.
What gives these medical experts hope in the midst of an outbreak is the vaccine: “There is light at the end of the tunnel. The vaccine is wonderful news when we enter 2021 and there is hope,” said Dr. Colwell.
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