A steep increase in seriously ill COVID-19 patients has pushed hospitals statewide into crisis mode again, prompting worries that the new surge may overwhelm facilities already struggling to find enough nurses to adequately staff emergency rooms and intensive care units.
Large hospitals in metro Atlanta frequently went on diversion status because they were so full, sending ambulances elsewhere. Some elective procedures started to get pushed back across the state to free up medical staff and hospital beds.
Everywhere, top doctors monitored a trendline driven by the highly contagious delta variant they worry could surpass the January surge that flooded every hospital in Georgia.
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
Here’s a look at major developments over the past week related to COVID-19.
Cases sharply rise
Southeast Georgia Health System in Brunswick this week already passed its previous pandemic peak.
More than half of its hospitalized patients were sick with COVID-19, and some had to stay in the emergency room for care because the hospital was so full. “Our emergency room wait times have surpassed anything I’ve ever experienced in my medical career,” said Dr. Mohsen Akhlaghi, the system’s chief of emergency medicine.
Statewide, the seven-day rolling average for hospitalizations — 3,931 as of Friday — exceeded the peak of last summer’s surge.
The number of new coronavirus infections has risen rapidly since the end of June. On Thursday, the state reported 7,042 new confirmed and suspected cases. The state’s seven-day rolling average of new cases — 6,263, according to an AJC analysis of state data is at its highest point since the end of January.
With cases and hospitalizations rising quickly across Georgia, it’s hard for hospitals from one part of the state to help out hospitals elsewhere that are overloaded.
Nurses were in short supply even before the pandemic. Now it’s a crisis with every hospital and nursing home trying to make hires from a very limited pool. Already, hospitals in Albany, Macon and Atlanta have been delaying some elective procedures to cope with the problems.
Credit: Alyssa Pointer
Credit: Alyssa Pointer
FDA authorizes third doses for some immunocompromised people
The Food and Drug Administration on Thursday authorized third doses of Pfizer-BioNTech’s and Moderna’s coronavirus vaccines for some people with weakened immune systems, and on Friday the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices voted unanimously in favor of the expanded use.
The authorization of a third dose, in the form of updates to the existing emergency use authorizations for the two vaccines, applies to people who received solid organ transplants and others with compromised immune systems.
For most people, health authorities say, the vaccines do what they were designed to do: Keep people out of hospitals and alive. But those whose immune systems are suppressed by medications such as steroids and cancer drugs, and those whose immune response is weak may be at risk of serious illness even though they have had two vaccine doses, the CDC’s vaccine advisory committee said Friday.
Federal authorities are also studying whether a much larger group of potentially vulnerable people, including those 65 and older, will need booster shots.
COVID-19 cases increase at schools; some switching to virtual
Metro Atlanta school districts are reporting several hundred cases of coronavirus in the first couple weeks of the new school year, leading some schools to switch to virtual learning.
More than 600 in-person students and staffers tested positive for COVID-19 in the first week of the academic year in Gwinnett County Public Schools.
Of the 607 new cases, 539 were students and 68 were staff, according to the school system’s daily reports. As of Thursday, there were 483 active cases of COVID-19 among students and school-based staff and 20 among employees who work in district offices.
Meanwhile, the number of active COVID-19 cases in the Cobb County School District, where masks are optional but “strongly encouraged,” nearly tripled in a week, with the bulk of new cases concentrated in its elementary schools. Children under 12 are not yet eligible for a COVID-19 vaccine.
The school with the highest number of active cases is East Side Elementary School with 46. On Wednesday, the school moved its entire fifth-grade class to virtual learning through Aug. 20 due to a spike in COVID cases.
The spike in cases prompted Fulton County Schools to extend its mask mandate to all buildings. Previously, students were required to wear masks except for 15 schools in Johns Creek.
Four schools in Clayton County have gone fully virtual since the year began last week due to rising case counts. All fifth-grade classes at East Side Elementary School in Cobb County switched to virtual classes through next week due to a spike there.
Elsewhere in the state, school districts in four Georgia counties temporarily switched to virtual learning due to outbreaks: Macon, Glascock, Talbot and Taliaferro.
Music Midtown to require vaccinations or negative test
Music Midtown has announced via its social media accounts that all who attend the festival will need to be fully vaccinated or have proof of a negative COVID-19 test.
The festival takes place in Piedmont Park on Sept. 18 and 19, with headliners Maroon 5, the Jonas Brothers, 21 Savage and Miley Cyrus.
Music Midtown joins several Atlanta venues in requiring vaccines or a negative test.
Staff writers J. Scott Trubey, Kristal Dixon and Shane Harrison contributed to this report.
