COLUMBUS, Ohio — The number of Ohioans in the hospital with COVID-19 is still rising and doctors around the state are continuing to sound the alarm.
Ohio Department of Health Director Dr. Bruce Vanderhoff held a news conference Thursday and said the amount of COVID cases and hospitalizations are still rivaling numbers from the winter peak. In some hospitals, the numbers are worse now than at any other time during the pandemic.
The continued surge brought on by the delta variant is being felt in hospitals state and nationwide.
"We're in a serious situation," Vanderhoff said. "Hospitals are being stretched to capacity not only because of high numbers of COVID-19 hospitalizations, but because of staffing challenges among people who have been on the frontlines of this for 18 months."
The state reported 7,747 new COVID cases Wednesday, which bumped the 21-day average over 6,000 for the first time since January. As of Thursday, there are 617 patients on ventilators - the most since Jan. 18.
There have been 991 new hospitalizations over the past three days.
Vanderhoff said 1 in 6 Ohioans in the hospital have COVID and 1 in 4 in the ICU have COVID. In rural areas, the numbers are worse.
Vanderhoff was joined by Dr. Mike Canady, CEO of Holzer Health System. Canady said his hospital has 73 COVID patients.
The highest number experienced during the winter surge was 43.
"I'm afraid if someone comes in with a medical problem we would normally take care of, we won't be able to because of staffing and beds," Canady said. "We have physical beds, but we are so short-staffed from many nurses who are burnt out or left. I've been in healthcare 40 years and I've never felt so helpless."
Promedica Vice President of Quality and Patient Safety Dr. Brian Kaminski was also on the call. He said hospitals in the Toledo area are experiencing similar circumstances with a shortage of workers, and in many cases, managers and other personnel are being forced onto the frontlines.
"With the delta surge, we went back to the pandemic as we knew it before," Kaminski said. "People are somber, they are stressed. People are feeling the strain."
Kaminski said the amount of unvaccinated people in the hospital among patients is still in the "high 90th percentile."
Canady stressed the best way to take pressure off the hospital systems is to get vaccinated. He said we've reached a "breaking point" and it may be a matter of time before patients do not receive the care they need.
"It's the most studied vaccine in the history of mankind," he said. "It can save your life. I wear an American flag [pin] a lot of days. I was in the Navy. When I think about the lives that were lost in the last 250 years in order to allow people to have the right not to take the vaccine - and I believe in an individual's right not to take the vaccine - but that right stops when it crosses over to the line of someone else's life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."