TOLEDO, Ohio — Leaders from the V Project and area hospitals are once again urging the community to help them combat the surge in COVID-19 cases due to the omicron variant.
Mayor Wade Kapszukiewicz, V Project founder Sean Savage, and various hospital officials and physicians held a virtual news conference Tuesday. They painted a grim picture of what it's like to work inside a hospital as COVID cases and hospitalizations continue to rise to unprecedented levels.
Ohio reported 19,611 new infections Tuesday, an increase of 1,569 from Monday. The state also eclipsed 100,000 total hospitalizations Tuesday since the beginning of the pandemic with 442 new ones reported in the last 24 hours.
"We've asked our hospitals to take care of us," Savage said. "At this point, the community has to realize it's up to all of us to take care of the hospitals."
The V Project released a new 30-second PSA which will go out soon on broadcast and print platforms, as well as on the organization's social media pages. The ad urges everyone to get vaccinated and boosted, and wear a mask.
Dr. James Tita, a pulmonologist with Mercy Health, said he has seen the impact COVID has on patients and the community. He said this fourth surge has put more people in Mercy hospitals than any other time during the pandemic.
"Of the nearly 600 patients in our facilities, 25-30% have COVID," Tita said. "In the ICU, nearly 50% are sick with COVID. During this surge, it's not only affecting the elderly. We're seeing much younger patients who are just as sick as the older patients."
Tita said 92% of COVID patients in Ohio hospitals are unvaccinated.
Pediatrician Dr. Jennifer DeLucia said children appear to be more at-risk for the omicron variant than previous iterations of the virus. Nationally, 500,000 children were infected with COVID in the past week.
"The hardest hit group is age 4 and below," DeLucia said. "It's possibly due to the fact that age group is not eligible to be vaccinated. The majority of children admitted in the hospital with COVID are not vaccinated."
ProMedica emergency room physician Dr. Brian Kaminski mentioned all hospitals in Lucas County have been placed on EMS bypass multiple times over the past several months. When a hospital goes on bypass, it stops receiving patients and ambulances are sent to a different hospital further away.
He said hospitals have reached an "overwhelmed" state.
"When we start boarding patients in the emergency department, it makes it harder to see that next person coming into the ER or in an ambulance," he said.
Dr. Wayne Bell, a Wood County physician, said cases and hospitalizations could come down in the next two or three weeks based on data from South Africa. However, he couldn't guarantee the same would happen in the United States.