Lee Health: COVID numbers ‘unprecedented’
'This spike has been quite dramatic and quite rapid'
New cases of COVID-19 are continuing to rise throughout Southwest Florida, and the region’s leading healthcare system is reporting record-shattering numbers by the day.
On Aug. 24, Lee Health President and Chief Executive Officer Dr. Larry Antonuuci, along with Pediatric Infectious Diseases Specialist and interim Chief of Quality and Patient Safety Dr. Stephanie Stovall, took to a public forum to answer questions pertaining to the virus, vaccine and recent spread throughout the community.
“We continue to see an unprecedented number of COVID patients in our hospitals,” Antonucci said. “This is something we’ve been watching over the past few weeks, and the numbers continue to go up. These are our friends, our neighbors, our children, and we are very, very concerned.”
Lee Health reported 641 patients positive for COVID-19 in its inpatient hospitals on Aug. 24 — a record. He also reported a record high in number of patients on ventilators (84) and in the Intensive Care Unit (103). At the peak of the virus last year, Lee Health had 372 COVID-positive patients.
“We are seeing patients sicker, and they’re getting sicker, faster,” Antonucci said. “We’re also seeing increased number of children. At our Golisano Children’s Hospital, our Emergency Department yesterday (Aug. 23) saw 265 patients, and that’s more than double than what we would normally see. Of those patients, 135 had COVID symptoms. This is a disease that’s effecting everyone, of every age, primarily unvaccinated.”
Another concerning factor is how contagious the Delta variant seems to be. Antonucci said in mid-June — just a few months ago — Lee Health had only 30 COVID-19 patients in its care.
“This spike has been quite dramatic and quite rapid,” he said.
As for the number of current patients in its care that have been vaccinated, Stovall said, “Typically, fewer than 10 percent of our patients of our patients confirmed (with COVID-19) are vaccinated.”
So, why are vaccinated individuals, though a low percentage, still contracting COVID-19?
“It’s really not all that surprising,” Stovall said. “Most vaccines are designed to prevent severe disease, designed to prevent death, they’re not necessarily designed to prevent infection,” she said. “It’s not easy to prevent infection with a virus, because all of that depends upon the virus itself, and depends upon the immune system. The vaccine keeps you from getting severe disease, it helps your immune system respond in a robust manner, but it won’t necessarily prevent infection. Unfortunately, COVID falls in that category.”
Antonucci said the more people become vaccinated throughout the area, the less of a chance for another mutation, such as Delta.
“Every time a virus replicates, you increase the chance that another mutation or another change can happen,” he said. “The less viral replication, the less chance of a mutation. What we’ve seen with COVID is a number of mutations that have occurred. Some have not been very significant, but Delta has been significant. Delta has increased its contagiousness quite significantly.”
Stovall added, “The Delta variant, unfortunately, has a propensity to cause infection faster — it causes people to have higher viral loads. The more virus you have, the more likely you are to spread it to someone else. The rapidity with which people get infected with Delta variant means that they’re getting high levels of virus really quickly before they recognize that they’re sick. So unfortunately, they’re spreading the virus before they even know they have the opportunity to do so. And that’s where Delta has become such a problem in our community and the world.”
When it comes to rates of infection throughout the state and in Lee County, Stovall said in Florida, roughly 600 to 700 individuals per 100,000 are COVID-19 positive. In Lee County, that number increases to more than 800 per 100,000. The United States average is less than 300 per 100,000.
“You are very likely in the state of Florida, particularly in our area right now, to have COVID, as opposed to other places in the United States,” she said.
Stovall added COVID booster shots for immune-compromised individuals who received either the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines are available now, and that boosters for all vaccinated individuals could be coming down the line.
“By the end of September, we’ll probably see boosters for other people,” she said, adding a formal FDA recommendation will be discussed on that topic soon.
When asked how individuals can feel confident with receiving a vaccine without knowing the long-term consequences, Stovall replied, “We’ve been at this for 18 months now, and we know some of the long-term effects of COVID. We know a lot of the long-term effects of vaccines in general, and the vast majority of vaccines when we look at those that are still in use and those that were in use for a while and then fell out of use, we know that most people who have reactions to vaccines, it happens within the first month or so. That’s why so much study is done early on, and you don’t even get the possibility of bringing one to market until you’re at least three to four months out from when you started your original phase one and phase two trials. So out of the thousands and tens of thousands of patients who have received these vaccines, that gives us a lot of good information. And historically knowing that mRNA vaccines specifically have been evaluated for over a decade — not specific to COVID — but mRNA vaccine technology has been out there for more than a decade and not been association with those long-term effects. Can we say for a specific COVID vaccine that we have five years of evidence? No, we can’t. But we can look historically at the science behind it and predict that we don’t anticipate long term problems with these vaccines.”
BY THE NUMBERS
As of Aug. 24, Lee Health had 641 COVID-19 patients isolated in system inpatient hospitals, including 84 new COVID-19 admissions and 67 COVID-19 discharges from Aug. 23. Lee Health saw 226 new COVID-19 admissions and 175 COVID-19 discharges over the weekend. Of those patients, 12 are children under the age of 18. Since the start of the pandemic, Lee Health has reported 847 patient deaths inside of its hospitals to COVID-19 related complications, including six on Aug. 23 and 22 over the weekend.
Census as of Aug. 24 was at 98 percent of staffed operational bed capacity. Staffed operational capacity reflects the number of beds for which the hospital has adequate staffing, not the total number of beds within Lee Health hospitals. Overall bed capacity fluctuates hour to hour as the system discharges patients throughout the day who are ready to go home.
As of Aug. 24, 47 percent of ventilators and 4 percent of ICU rooms are available for use across Lee Health facilities. There were 84 COVID-19 patients on ventilators and 103 in the intensive care unit.
COVID-19 is a highly contagious viral disease. For most individuals, symptoms are mild. For a minority, the disease becomes a type of viral pneumonia with severe complications. Especially at risk are those who are older, those with underlying health conditions and the immune-compromised.
With the number of COVID- 19 cases again climbing due, in part, to the latest mutation of the virus, the CDC is recommending that even vaccinated individuals “maximize protection from the Delta variant and possibly spreading it to others” by wearing a mask indoors in public in areas “of substantial or high transmission.”
The CDC also recommends masks for those at high risk of serious illness from COVID, those with compromised immune systems, those who are older, and those with underlying medical conditions.
Vaccination is highly urged.
For more detail on Florida resident cases, visit floridahealthcovid19.gov.
To find the most up-to-date information and guidance on COVID-19, visit the Department of Health’s dedicated COVID-19 webpage. For information and advisories from the Centers for Disease Control, visit the CDC COVID-19 website. For more information about current travel advisories issued by the U.S. Department of State, visit the travel advisory website.
For any other questions related to COVID-19 in Florida, contact the Department’s dedicated COVID-19 Call Center by calling 866-779-6121. The Call Center is available 24 hours per day. Inquiries may also be emailed to COVID-19@flhealth.gov.
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