Tennessee has reached a record number of hospitalizations for the coronavirus, with Memphis-area infections significantly contributributing to the overall increase.
A new Vanderbilt University report shows a trend of hospitalizations that—if not reversed—could result in double the number of patients statewide by the end of July.
In Memphis, a steep jump from about 160 patients last Monday to over 210 on Tuesday, froze the local timetable for further reopening business.
“Those of us who are caring for patients in the hospital take this very seriously because we’ve all seen people die,” says Dr. Steve Threlkeld, an infectious disease specialist at Baptist Memorial Hospital.
Despite the spike, he says area hospitals currently have enough resources to care for the sickest COVID patients. He noted that local "shelter-at-home" orders earlier this spring allowed for hospitals to stock up on equipment such as ECMO machines, which are used in the most serious cases.
But, Threlkeld says further unmitigated spread of the virus could easily and quickly tax the system, even with adequate preparation.
A 400-bed field hospital—fashioned out of the old Commercial Appeal building on Union Ave and completed in May—is on standby should hospitals need overflow space.
“I’ve always thought that it would be something of a failure to have to utilize those sorts of facilities,” Threlkeld says. “If we do the right thing as a city, and as citizens, we shouldn’t have to do that.”
Doing the right thing, he says, includes wearing masks and practicing social distancing—proven ways to reduce the chance of becoming a COVID statistic.
This week, health experts reported a rising number of hospitalized COVID patients in younger age demographics, specifically those in their 20's and 30's, which to them indicates troublesome community transmission.
“A certain percentage of the people that get infected are going to get sick enough to come into thehospital. That’s a fairly reproducible number,” Threlkeld says. “So it’s a more objective measure of what we’re seeing actually in the community.”
The Vanderbilt study also notes that neighboring states might be contributing to the spike in hospitalizations, specifically in an urban center like Memphis that serves populations in northern Mississippi and eastern Arkansas.
Based on historical patterns of hospital use, 10 to 15 percent of COVID-19 patients in Tennessee may be non-state residents.
At the onset of the pandemic, hospitals took precautions to free up hospital beds and resources by halting elective procedures. Now that these practices have resumed, experts say it’s all the more reason to closely monitor capacity.
Potentially having to revert back to such measures, comes with its own costs. Threlkeld points out that delaying even minor checkups, such as cancer screenings, can cause other problems down the road.
“It’s difficult to sustain things we had to do on the front end of this,” he says. “There is pain and suffering and even mortality risks on both sides of the shutdown, versus the danger of the virus.”