The recent drop in covid-19 hospitalizations in Allegheny County is likely the result of several factors, including public support for mitigation measures, officials said.
Allegheny County on Friday reported the biggest drop this month in hospitalizations caused by the virus. Data from the Pennsylvania Department of Health showed that there were 190 covid-19 patients hospitalized in the county on Friday, marking the lowest number of hospitalizations in Allegheny County since early November.
Several factors have likely contributed to this downward trend in hospitalizations, said Dr. Donald Yealy, senior medical director at UPMC and president of emergency medicine at UPMC and the University of Pittsburgh.
Yealy said he saw a decreasing number of individuals seeking the test, individuals receiving positive test results and individuals who need hospital care. These downward trends started in mid-December and continue, he said.
He cited recent government restrictions that closed restaurants and gyms on Jan. 4 as factors that likely helped the numbers start to fall.
Individual actions – including wearing a mask and social detachment – also played a key role, he said.
“The biggest thing is human behavior and acceptance of how simple things can be important,” said Yealy.
He said it is too early to attribute the reduction to vaccination efforts, but they will take action soon.
After watching the number of cases increase dramatically in the fall, Yealy said, many people began to take the virus more seriously and adhered more strictly to wearing masks and measures of social distance. In addition, now that the holiday season is over, people may be less tempted to attend large gatherings.
“The news is good, but we are not yet out of danger,” he said, urging people to continue carrying out mitigation efforts.
Masking, social detachment and hand washing are important factors in declining hospitalizations across the state, said Maggi Barton, assistant press secretary for the Pennsylvania Department of Health.
“Following these proven public health practices, our mitigation orders and, most importantly, the resilience of our Pennsylvania colleagues to unite against covid-19, Pennsylvania is seeing encouraging data related to at least covid-19 spreading across the country. community as we report a reduction in statewide positivity rates, as well as reduced case counts, ”said Barton. “With fewer people in Pennsylvania contracting the virus, there was less of an impact on our hospitalizations for covid-19.”
Individual efforts combined with increased knowledge to reduce hospitalizations, said Yealy. A better understanding of the virus and how to treat it can help healthcare professionals to keep people out of the hospital or reduce hospital stay.
“Throughout the year of the pandemic, we learned a lot about what works and what doesn’t,” he said. “So we learned to test better, to test earlier, to use drugs and therapies that help and avoid those that don’t really help. Many of the tools did not exist a year ago – they are now available to us. “
Another factor in the recent decline in covid-19 hospitalizations, said Yealy, is simply the nature of the virus.
“We know that pandemics, apart from our behavior, tend to have ups and downs in viral activity. So part of that is the nature of viral pandemics, ”he said.
It is impossible to predict whether the downward trend will continue steadily or whether hospitalizations and the number of cases may peak again, said Yealy. But he is optimistic that trends will continue to fall.
“I think, in general, between our personal behavior and the growing vaccination efforts, the general trend is that, over the months, the numbers continue to fall,” said Yealy.
Julia Felton is a staff writer for the Tribune-Review. You can contact Julia at 724-226-7724, [email protected] or via Twitter .
Tags:
Allegheny | Location | Best stories