UC Davis emergency room is seeing ‘astonishing’ numbers of young people with COVID-19
Vaccines for COVID-19 are widely available and effective at staving off the respiratory disease, yet the UC Davis Medical Center reported Friday that its emergency room nearly set a new record in the first week of August for the number of COVID-19 patients.
The UCD doctors noted in a news release issued Friday that, this time around, they are putting a much younger generation of Sacramentans on life support than they did earlier in the pandemic. Roughly three out of five people coming to the UC Davis emergency department are ages 39 or younger, according to UCD statistics.
“The numbers are astonishing, and at the same time, we are seeing no decrease in the number of non-COVID ED visits,” said Dr. Nathan Kuppermann, professor and chair in the Department of Emergency Medicine. “This is leading to substantial crowding of the (emergency department), despite creating a special area for the care of patients with COVID.”
The number of COVID-19 patients surged to 107 in the emergency department at UC Davis Medical Center during the first week of August, up 33 percent from the 80 patients seen the week before. Even more telling, the figure is just eight fewer than the weekly all-time high set during the week of Dec. 20, 2020, before vaccines were widely available.
At Kaiser Permanente, officials issued a statement that, in part, said: “We are closely monitoring an increase in hospitalizations and positive test rates for COVID-19 in Kaiser Permanente Northern California. Throughout Northern California, cases have increased threefold over the past four weeks. It is important for all of us to remember that the virus is still circulating, and now including the highly contagious Delta variant.”
Earlier this week, Dr. Nicole Braxley, the ED medical director at Mercy San Juan Medical Center, told The Bee that staff members there were relieved three weeks ago to see that vaccination efforts appeared to be working as their special COVID-19 ward cleared of patients. That respite has ended, she said.
“We were done,” Braxley said in a Monday interview. “We were done. I don’t know what to say. We’re tired.”
Sutter officials said they also are seeing an increase of visits to emergency departments at their local hospitals and a rise in COVID-19 hospitalizations.
Kuppermann of UC Davis expressed concern about the strain that the competition for emergency care is placing on local resources, and he urged local residents to take precautions against COVID-19.
“We are always ready to care for patients in any emergency, but this is stressing our capacity,” he said.. We need to strongly encourage masking in the community and emphatically encourage those who have not been vaccinated to get their vaccine. These two interventions have been scientifically proven to greatly prevent the transmission and the seriousness of the disease. And to be clear, COVID-19 is a serious disease that can not only lead to death, but to long-term problems.”
The California Department of Public Health reported Friday that there were 376 patients hospitalized with COVID-19 in Sacramento County, a number not seen in about six months. A little more than half the county’s intensive care unit beds are filled with COVID-19 patients, according to state data, and El Dorado, Placer and Yolo counties also are experiencing surges since California re-opened in July.
“We had this sense that things were beginning to return to normal,” said Dr. Nick Sawyer, an ED physician at UCD Medical Center. “But instead, it turned out to be the perfect storm.”
UC Davis emergency doctors said that most of the symptomatic COVID-19 patients did not get vaccinated. While earlier surges of COVID-19 brought middle-aged and elderly patients to hospitals, doctors said 42% of the patients now are between the ages of 20 and 39 and another 17% are 19 years or younger.
“We are seeing young, otherwise healthy unvaccinated patients who are coming in with varying symptoms, ranging from gastrointestinal upset, fever, coughing and sore throat to full-blown respiratory failure requiring intubation,” Sawyer said. “It’s very sad.”
In one case, Sawyer said, a woman came in with her toddler who had COVID-19. The mother had been vaccinated, but her boyfriend had not.
More than 80% of the COVID-19-positive patients tested at UC Davis have the delta variant of COVID-19, which scientists have said is significantly more contagious.
“It’s very transmissible,” Sawyer explained. “In an unvaccinated population, for every one person who contracts the disease, an average of seven people will also get sick.”
With the original virus, each infected person sickened between two and three 3 other people, he said.
All hospitals told The Bee that no patient should put off urgent or emergency care and that they would adjust operations to handle the need. They also emphasized they continue to follow safety precautions in order to prevent the spread of COVID-19 and protect the health and safety of patients and staff.
This story was originally published August 13, 2021 at 2:50 PM.
