San Diego Hospitals Brace For Surge In COVID-19 Patients

Speaker 1: 00:00 The week long surge in Corona virus cases in San Diego continued Wednesday with the County reporting 718 new cases and seven additional deaths. As newly diagnosed cases continue to Mount local hospitals are counting the days until they see an upswing in COVID-19 patients suffering from serious disease and they are bracing for what could be a dangerous rise in infection. After the Thanksgiving holiday, joining me is KPBS North County reporter Tanya thorn, and Tanya, welcome to the program. Thanks for having me, Maureen, what are the hospital healthcare workers you spoke with concerned about? Is it the holidays, more events happening indoors? Speaker 2: 00:43 You know, they have a couple of different concerns. The holidays are definitely a big one, one doctor, I mean said she saw an increase in COVID-19 cases just with Halloween weekend alone. So we're already kind of starting to see that. And as well as the cooler weather is starting to approach slowly, um, and to San Diego, you know, that's going to keep more people in doors and confined. And now we're also talking about the holiday dinners, you know, more groups getting together in indoors and unmasked settings. So this is all worrying, um, health officials. Speaker 1: 01:17 Now there's a link between a surge in newly diagnosed cases and the number of hospitalizations, what kind of lag time is there between diagnosis. And when people start showing up with serious illness Speaker 2: 01:28 Right now, we're seeing up to two weeks, uh, that hospitalization lag time is behind because, you know, once they get their test results, they are waiting to get sick enough until they actually do have to go to the hospital and get medical attention Speaker 1: 01:42 Status of San Diego's hospital and ICU bed capacity. Now, Speaker 2: 01:47 Right now we're seeing 70% hospital capacity, but now this is including all cases, not just COVID-19 cases, the UT reports that local hospitalizations continued their gradual upward trajectory reaching a county-wide combined census of 387 Monday, including 24 new admissions. The latest number puts the region near the record of 411 reached according to County records in early July. So that's definitely going up, especially as we just, you know, we're approaching the cooler weather and we just saw the Halloween weekend pass. And so these numbers are going up and they're definitely raising flags to a lot of the hospitals and medical officials. I spoke to, you know, three different San Diego hospitals. And right now they're all seeing those increases in their hospitals. But you spoke Speaker 1: 02:35 With a doctor at Scripps who actually saw disturbing signs in ICU increases. Speaker 2: 02:42 Yes, dr. Ghazala Sharif with scripts. Health said the current numbers are going back to records. We had reached back in July. So instead of having the numbers go down and they're starting to go back up to numbers, we saw, you know, back in July and in her facility alone, this is raising major flags for us Speaker 3: 03:00 Is that from yesterday, today we have six more intensive care unit patients. And that that's a flag for us. Now, Speaker 1: 03:06 Summer San Diego got the resources for an overflow field hospital. Didn't it. Can you remind us about that? Speaker 2: 03:13 Yeah. You know, this is something that happened back in April San Diego County chose Palomar medical center in Escondido as a location for a federal field station with 200 beds. This location was chosen as opposed to having a convention center or tent set up because Palomar really had the space and the resources should they need them? Now if San Diego, uh, hospitals reach capacity, then that's when we would tap into this federal field hospital. Uh, this is a resource that San Diego has yet to use. Uh, we haven't ha had the need to do that. And the beds are there. They're sitting empty and they could be available within 24 hours. Speaker 1: 03:55 Okay. So they can ramp up really quickly. Overall though, apparently from your report, the doctors you spoke with said right now, San Diego hospitals are doing okay, but I remember one of the doctors in your report also had a warning. Tell us about that. Speaker 2: 04:10 Yes. You know, most of the doctors feel well-prepared with as far as PPE and their staffing, but dr. Christopher Long hearse with UC San Diego health said, although the hospitals are prepared for a surge, that feeling could change. Speaker 3: 04:24 We're very worried about the holidays. It could become a perfect storm that puts us in a COVID Speaker 2: 04:29 And that's definitely something we want to avoid. So all the health officials I spoke with are urging the community to continue wearing their masks and follow state guidelines, especially as the holidays approach in order to avoid further COVID-19 cases from rising Speaker 1: 04:44 In speaking with KPBS, North County reported Tonya Thorne. Thank you so much for speaking with us. Thanks for having me, Maureen.