Right now, about 460 San Diego County residents are hospitalized with COVID-19, a fourfold increase since May. But the situation is significantly better than it was last summer and this past winter.
Sharp has about 160 COVID-19 patients, the most of any hospital system in the county. Yet, McClain said, there are far fewer being admitted to the intensive care unit or put on ventilators.
"We certainly have less patients with this surge that are requiring ventilation than ever before, and that’s great because our antiviral [treatments] are working," said UC San Diego Health's chief medical officer, Dr. Chris Longhurst.Longhurst said he also saw some patients presenting with milder illness, and, according to data from UC San Diego, recent infections are not as deadly as before.
Scripps Health officials say their situation is similar to the other hospital systems. Scripps Chief Medical Officer Dr. Ghazala Sharieff said about 10% of hospitalizations were"incidental" case findings, meaning that people are testing positive while being admitted for something else.COVID-19 aside, officials at Sharp and Scripps are seeing unusually high volumes of non-COVID-related emergency room and urgent care visits. And the virus is hitting hospital staff hard.
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