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State’s caseload worrying Levine

Health secretary urges continued vigilance

Yet another state new-case record for COVID-19, along with a record for coronavirus hospitalizations and possibly intensive care patients, lent urgency to Health Secretary Dr. Rachel Levine’s call Thursday that everyone shares responsibility for keeping hospitals from being overwhelmed.

The case record leaped from last Friday’s 8,425 to 11,406 on Thursday — 5.5 times the top number in the spring, while hospitalizations neared 5,000 and the total for ICU patients climbed above 1,000.

“We all have a role to play in what is happening in the hospitals,” Levine said during a virtual news conference.

Some people are fortunate enough not to have contracted COVID-19 or know anyone who has had it, but they still need to realize they must be part of the solution, Levine said.

Thus, they must follow the department’s recommendations to mask, keep social distance, wash hands and stay home as much as possible.

The department hears all the time that hospitals are strained.

“In a number of counties, there are only a few — or no — ICU beds left,” she said.”This is an unprecedented time.”

Running out of ICU beds statewide “is a significant concern we need to work to avoid,” Levine said.

One of the tools for doing so is the department’s Early Warning Monitoring Dashboard, along with a recent order on elective surgery limitations for hospitals, effective when a region’s hospitals reach any two trigger points among three criteria for staffing shortages, COVID-19 admission surges and bed shortages, Levine said.

Of the seven regions, only two — the southcentral region that includes Blair, Bedford and Huntingdon counties and the southwest region, which includes Cambria County — have reached a single trigger point, both for anticipated short-staffing.

Hospitals can increase the number of ICU beds by transforming regular medical-surgical beds, Levine said.

But they need the right equipment — and more importantly, sufficient trained staff, Levine said.

Some hospitals have had to make changes to their routines, including placing patients in hallways, and they report such changes, Levine said.

Patients are not, however, receiving care in the hallways at UPMC, wrote hospital spokeswoman Danielle Sampsell in an email.

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