January 1 – As the Omicron COVID-19 variant continues to spread around the world, health officials are concerned they will see a repeat this fall when people infected with the Delta variant close emergency rooms and stretch hospitals to their breaking point .
As of Wednesday, 30 patients had been hospitalized with COVID at Hamilton Medical Center – 23 (77%) were unrelated. Of those COVID patients, seven (all unrelated) were in the intensive care unit and four (all unrelated) were on ventilators.
This is a far cry from this last fall when there were 78 COVID patients in the hospital (91% illiterate); 17 of them were in ICU (94% illiterate); And 15 were on ventilators (93% without vaccination).
Health officials are stressing once again the importance of vaccinations, which are free and available at county health departments and pharmacies. In public settings, health officials are urging people to wear masks, maintain physical distance, and frequently wash their hands with soap and water.
Georgia’s Department of Public Health also this week told people wishing to be tested for COVID not to go to hospital emergency rooms unless they needed “immediate medical attention.”
According to the state’s Department of Public Health, “to help keep hospital emergency departments open to treat medical emergencies, individuals seeking a COVID test should not go to hospital emergency departments unless they Not experiencing severe COVID-19 symptoms that require immediate medical attention. “Symptomatic individuals or individuals with mild symptoms should find testing sites other than hospital emergency departments.”
COVID testing locations are available throughout Georgia and can be found on the Department of Public Health’s website at dph.georgia.gov/covidtesting.
According to the Department of Public Health, “We are working with our laboratory partners to extend testing hours and add testing sites, however, lines will continue as long as thousands of Georgians want to get tested.”
To help reduce delays at testing sites, “it is important that people register before leaving” at the Department of Public Health testing sites. According to the Department of Public Health, “Online registration (https://dph.georgia.gov/covidtesting) will help reduce backups at testing sites and allow staff to perform more tests if they are not carrying out registration paperwork.” will set you free.” ,
