It’s a new year, but the Thanksgiving boom has spilled over into 2021 and now medical doctors are holding their breath to see a week after Christmas what another boom may look like.
“We still see the Thanksgiving numbers and that’s why it’s so scary. We have not seen the Christmas numbers yet and we have not seen New Year’s numbers either,” said Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, UCSF Infectious Diseases Specialist, said.
An increase in cases after three holidays at a time can mean serious stress for the medical system. UCSF is dr. Peter Chin-Hong says they are still waiting for more data.
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“This is because a lot of people are closed for the holidays when it comes to labs, so they do not report these numbers until people reopen next week. So, what is likely to happen next week is a big blow in cases,” said Dr. Chin-Hong.
In March, medical experts met to discuss a response plan for an unprecedented increase in cases. Dr Peter Chin-Hong says these meetings have equipped them for what may take place in the coming weeks.
‘We all met to decide how to distribute ventilators, whether we had enough ventilators in the region and how to make some of these difficult decisions about who should go into hospital treatment and who should not, depending on ‘I am afraid that we will have to use some of the decision-making rules that were divided by these groups within two weeks,’ said dr. Chin-Hong said.
At the Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital, dr. Colwell said they had experienced the highest number of COVID-19 cases in the past ten months this week, with 52 cases peaking.
“It was therefore a predictable pattern of 10 days to 2 weeks where people would see people get sick 5 days after the holiday,” said dr. Christopher Colwell, head of emergency medicine at Zuckerberg SF General Hospital and Trauma, said. Centre.
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Dr. Colwell reported the first COVID-19 cases of Christmas gatherings this week and began implementing their training plan.
“We have opened a new floor that was only for COVID patients, and that has meant that we are more limited in terms of elective procedures and surgeries will be limited to really the urgent and emerging surgeries,” Dr Colwell said.
As the head of Zuckerberg’s general hospitals, dr. Colwell worries about the impact a potential boom could have on his staff.
# COVID-19 | The holidays are over, but now doctors are reporting the first COVID-19 cases of Christmas gatherings.
Dr. Colwell says they have started implementing their training plan at the Zuckerberg SF General:
“We have opened a new floor that was only for COVID patients.”@ abc7newsbayarea pic.twitter.com/toUDEhpIRM
– Luz Peña (@ LuzPenaABC7) January 3, 2021
“A lot of my time now is trying to address the problem with all of our staff who have been doing it for ten months, and honestly we are all exhausted,” said dr. Colwell said.
What gives both of these medical experts hope amid a boom is a vaccine: “There’s light at the end of the tunnel. The vaccine is great news as we enter 2021 and there is hope,” Dr Colwell said.
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