(NEW YORK) — Nearly 2 million new cases of cancer are expected to be diagnosed and some 609,000 people will likely die from cancer in the U.S. in 2022, according to a new report published Wednesday.
The annual report from the American Cancer Society estimates that 1,918,030 Americans will be diagnosed with cancer, equivalent to 5,250 new cases being detected every day. This is up from approximately 1.8 million new cases that likely occurred in 2021.
Both figures — for cases and deaths — are the highest estimates made by the ACS since at least 2007.
Health experts have suggested that people missing cancer screenings and doctor’s appointments due to the COVID-19 pandemic may cause cancer rates to rise in the coming years.
However, Dr. Rebecca Siegel, an epidemiologist at the American Cancer Society and corresponding author of the report, told ABC News that estimates were made based on complete data, which is only available through 2018 for cases and 2019 for deaths.
“We absolutely expect that the pandemic will impact cancer rates because of delays in screenings, and diagnoses because of health care closures, but we were not able to account for that yet,” she said.
She expects future reports will likely reflect the impacts of the pandemic.
Among the findings in the report is that cases of breast cancer have been slowly increasing by about 0.5% every year. In 2022, an estimated 290,560 Americans will be diagnosed with breast cancer, mostly women.
Siegel said this is not because of an increase in screenings that detect the cancer but rather because more women are having fewer children later in life — both of which are linked to an increased likelihood of breast cancer.
“It’s thought to be related to continued declines in the fertility rate, because the higher number of childbirths and the earlier age is protective against breast cancer, and we know that women are having children later and they’re having fewer children,” she said. “So that is likely contributing to this small increase.”
She added that higher body weight also increases the risk of breast cancer and that increasing rates of obesity are likely a contributing factor.
The report also showed disparities when it comes to communities of color. For example, Black women were 40% more likely to die of breast cancer despite having lower rates than white women.
Siegel said this is because minorities have traditionally had less access to high quality health care and that more effort needs to be placed in providing access to disadvantaged communities.
However, the report also had some bright spots. The risk of death from cancer overall has been declining continuously since 1991 with about 3.5 million cancer deaths avoided as of 2019.
“The population-level data seen in this report reflects our experience treating patients. Cancer has become a curable or chronic disease for more Americans,” Dr. Deb Schrag, Chair of Medicine at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York, who was not involved in the report, told ABC News in a statement.
Additionally, although lung cancer continues to be the leading cause of death in the U.S. — with an estimated 350 deaths per day from lung cancer — the three-year survival rate has increased from 21% in 2004 to 31%.
Siegel said declines in smoking played a role, but the bigger factors are recent improvements in treatment and lung cancer being detected in early stages.
“One finding was that twice as many lung cancers are being detected at an early stage, and that means more patients are having their cancer detected when they’re the most treatable,” Dr. Lauren Byers, a lung cancer expert at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Texas, who was not involved with the report, told ABC News.
Siegel said she hopes the new report encourages people to stay up-to-date on their cancer screenings.
“We have a lot of effective screening tests now to prevent deaths from cancer and so, while none of these tests is perfect, being up to date and talking with your doctor about when you should screen can really help reduce your risk of dying from cancer,” she said.
(NEW YORK) — A federal judge in New York has denied Prince Andrew’s motion to dismiss a lawsuit from Virginia Giuffre, an alleged victim of Jeffrey Epstein.
A spokesperson for Prince Andrew said no comment when asked for one.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(NEW YORK) — Throughout the pandemic, periodic surges in demand for COVID-19 testing — typically during a spike in cases or prior to holiday travel — have put strain on the nation’s testing capacity.
During these times, it can be difficult for people to quickly learn if they are positive for the virus — and to isolate if they are.
Testing is something the U.S. has struggled to get right from the get-go, from strict rules and problems with the initial test kits to how to manage supply and demand during peaks and lulls. In 2021, America grappled with how to manage the volume of tests needed in a fully reopened country with schools and workplaces requiring regular testing, pressures exacerbated during the highly contagious omicron variant hitting ahead of the holidays.
This presents a real problem because experts believe a successful COVID-19 testing regime — along with vaccinations — is the key to building a new normal.
Over the course of the pandemic, the number and types of tests have proliferated, turnaround times for results have varied and other questions arose, including which test should be used and when and where should they be administrated.
So how can the U.S. increase access to tests, and what kind of infrastructure is needed if COVID is going to be an endemic disease, meaning it is always circulating within the population but at low rates. What kind of testing system is needed to prevent further outbreaks fueled by variants including delta and omicron?
Testing experts told ABC News the answer is decentralizing the system and delivering tests to patients directly, setting up community sites with reliable rapid molecular testing and being able to test people for multiple diseases at one time — including COVID.
The tests we have now
Currently, the U.S. has two different types of viral tests used to diagnose COVID-19: antigen tests and molecular tests.
Antigen tests, also known as rapid tests, look for antigens, or proteins, from the coronavirus and return results usually within less than an hour. Molecular tests, also known as PCR tests, are run in a laboratory for viral material and typically return results within three days.
PCR tests are mostly administered at government-run sites, urgent care centers, doctor’s offices and pharmacies, many of which have seen long lines amid the surge fueled by the omicron variant. At-home antigen tests have soared in popularity in recent weeks as way to avoid lines and quickly determine whether or not a person is infected.
How quickly the omicron variant continues to spread will determine whether the U.S. has enough testing capacity for now, the experts say.
“Certainly we have a lot of testing and I think, currently, in the country we can provide well north of two or three million [lab] tests in a day when you consider everything that’s available,” Dr. William Morice, chair of the Department of Laboratory Medicine at Mayo Clinic, told ABC News.
Currently, the U.S. is performing an average of 1.7 million COVID-19 tests per day, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). However, experts say we should be performing more tests than that.
Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, an infectious diseases specialist at the University of California, San Francisco, told ABC News that the U.S. needs to be performing many more tests — upwards of 2 or 3 million per day — so infected people can get the treatment they need more quickly, avoid being sent to the hospital and contact tracing can occur.
“Use of testing, it’s not as much to show how many cases we have, but it’s actually used for diagnosis ” Chin-Hong said. “When people use testing early on, they can get better bang for their buck with early therapies and prevent them from going to the hospital.”
He continued, “A PCR test can trigger contact tracing, early therapy. There are a lot of other domino effects of testing that’s simply just more than ‘I have another case in my community.’ It actually ends up potentially saving hospital resources.”
Morice believes that if cases continue to rise, then the supply could be strained. The U.S. is recording an average of more than 668,000 infections per day (as of Jan. 7) — the most ever since the pandemic began, although this figure is partially due to a backlog of data reporting over the holidays.
“When the virus is not prevalent and less common in communities, the testing that we’ve had, for example here in Seattle, has been quite adequate,” Dr. Geoffrey Baird, chair of the Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology at UW Medicine, told ABC News. “I think we have plenty of testing available if we were just testing people who have symptoms.”
He continued, “But when you have to test asymptomatic people before traveling, before gatherings, before school or before sports, that ends up getting difficult to so support because the absolute number of tests needed can get very, very large.”
The experts say that infectious disease modelers didn’t predict the emergence of the omicron variant or how quickly it would spread — especially as people traveled over the holidays — leading to increased demand for testing.
Dr. Brian Rubin, professor and chairman of the Pathology and Laboratory Medicine Institute at the Cleveland Clinic, told ABC News that at his lab, there have been about 50% more positive tests in 2021 than the year before.
During the previous winter surge, the clinic never had more than 1,000 positive tests per day. In late 2021, as many as 1,700 tests per day come back positive, he said. With as many as 4,000 to 5,000 tests being run every day, this puts a great amount of strain on hospitals, laboratory personnel and testing supplies.
The system we need
Rubin believes the key to building up a robust testing program is to decentralize the system the U.S. has even further, meaning more at-home testing without the need of a healthcare provider to order or perform the test.
“Anything we can do to automate that,” he said. “Decentralizing is going to be the key. How do we not call their doctor to order the test, get them to swab themselves, et cetera.”
He added, “If we can get really reliable testing into the hands of individuals so you can test at home without leaving your home, we can handle it.”
Although most at-home tests currently on shelves are pretty reliable, some at-home tests are known to produce an abundance of false positives.
He envisions a system in which the U.S. uses Amazon or an Amazon-like service to deliver test kits to people’s homes on a grander scale than what is already available.
People perform the test themselves, including swabbing and analyzing the sample. Once they get results, they scan a barcode or QR code, alerting public health officials of a positive test result rather than the person having to call a doctor or the local health department to inform them. Although some tests already do this, Rubin would like to see all tests have this capability.
At-home tests have a very low likelihood of delivering false positives if a person is symptomatic. So, under Rubin’s proposed system, if the person is symptomatic and gets a positive result, they could stay home and therefore help eliminate long lines at testing sites and free up appointments at clinics.
However, a person who is asymptomatic and gets a positive result from a delivered at-home test would be recommended to get PCR test to confirm they are truly infected with COVID.
Additionally, under Rubin’s system, if someone is a contact of a positive patient, they would be informed and get guidance on whether to get tested or quarantine.
“We have all the pieces for home testing, but how do we make it super elegant and slick and make it as easy as possible,” he said.
The Biden administration is trying to ramp up testing via a similar method: creating a website that will distribute 500 million free at-home rapid COVID tests to Americans, which officials promised will not cut into the current supply of tests on shelves.
Possible setbacks
However there are issues with rapid tests. At-home testing involves multiple steps and requires a clean workspace, meaning people may be performing the tests incorrectly. Additionally, rapid tests are more likely to return false negatives than laboratory tests because they are less sensitive.
This means that rapid tests have to detect enough antigens, or proteins, in the nose to return a positive result. However, laboratory tests, which look for genetic material, can return a positive result even if only trace amounts are detected.
Because of these potential issues, Baird says he is in favor of setting up community testing sites like UW Medicine has done in Washington that use rapid molecular tests.
These are like PCR tests, which are considered the gold standard of testing, but return results within a few hours rather than within a few days.
The UW community sites collect samples, which are then shipped by courier back to the main lab, where they can be quickly analyzed, Baird would like to see a similar system set up by big hospitals across the country.
“The chances of it giving a false negative are very, very low. No test is 100% perfect but it’s as good as you can get and so we’re doing the best we can by making the best possible test as expendable as possible,” Baird said. “I’d be in favor of multiple community test sites like kiosks or trailers or other sites, it can be in retail spaces or something like that.”
Morice said it’s also important to have combination tests that check for multiple diseases such as COVID-19 and the flu, which are currently available — although not at all clinics.
“That will be really important and it’s certainly needed,” he said. “Last year was really anomalous in that we had no influenza whatsoever. Now we’re seeing rates going back up so we’ll need it for that reason.”
Jeannie Mai and Jeezy have welcomed their first child!
Taking to social media Tuesday, The Real talk show host, 42, announced that she and husband, rapper Jeezy, 44, have officially welcomed their new bundle of joy.
“I asked God for a life of love and happiness. He sent me my family,” Mai captioned a photo showing the name tag “Jenkins” and a baby blanket covered in footprints.
“Baby Jenkins is here,” she added.
Jenkins is the couple’s last name — Jeezy’s birth name is Jay Wayne Jenkins. The pair did not share details regarding the name or sex of the baby.
This is the couple’s first child together. Jeezy has three children from previous relationships.
In an interview on ABC’s Good Morning America, Britney Spears‘ sister Jamie Lynn Spears insists that contrary to what Britney has implied, she did, in fact, support the superstar singer during her conservatorship, which Britney called “abusive.”
“I’ve always been my sister’s biggest supporter,” Jamie Lynn told ABC News’ Juju Chang in an interview to promote her memoir Things I Should Have Said. “So when she needed help, I set up ways to do so. Went out of my way to make sure that she had the contacts she needed to possibly go ahead and end this conservatorship and just end this all for our family. If it’s going to cause this much discord, why continue it?”
“Everyone has a voice, and it should be heard,” she continued, adding that she even spoke to her sister’s previous legal team and it “did not end well” for her. Jamie Lynn said she took the steps to help, but it was up to Britney to “walk through the door.”
In her book, out January 18, Jamie Lynn describes Britney’s behavior before the conservatorship as “erratic,” “paranoid” and “spiraling.” And now? Jamie Lynn says “can’t really speak to anyone else’s state of mind.”
Britney’s conservatorship was put in place in 2008 and ended this past November, which Jamie Lynn says she was “happy” about. However, she told Chang, “When it was put into place, I was 17 years old. I was about to have a baby, so I didn’t understand what was happening. Nor was I focused on that. I was focused on the fact that I was a 17-year-old about to have a baby. I understand just as little about it then as I do now.”
And while Britney currently seems to have issues with Jamie Lynn and the rest of her family, Jamie Lynn told Chang, “That love is still there. 100%. I love my sister.”
She added, “I’ve only ever loved and supported her and done what’s right by her, and she knows that, so I don’t know why we’re in this position right now.”
Meanwhile, Britney is hinting she may write a memoir of her own. On Instagram, she posted a photo of an old-fashioned typewriter and captioned it, “Shall I start from THE BEGINNING???”
Dexter: New Blood has become the most-watched series in Showtime’s history, averaging more than six million viewers a week across its 10-episode run, according to Variety. Additionally, the season finale brought in three million viewers in its Sunday debut, making it the biggest Showtime finale in more than eight years. The final episode of the Dexter sequel, starring Michael C. Hall, also surpassed the previous record-holder, Homeland season three’s finale from 2013, as well as setting a record for Showtime with two million of the finale’s viewers coming from streaming and on-demand platforms…
ABC has picked up Station 19 for a sixth season, the network announced on Tuesday. The news comes just one day after its parent show, Grey’s Anatomy, was renewed for a 19th season. Station 19, which follows a group of heroic Seattle firefighters as they put their lives and hearts on the line, stars Jaina Lee Ortiz, Jason George, Boris Kodjoe, Grey Damon, Barrett Doss, Jay Hayden, Okieriete Onaodowan, Danielle Savre and Miguel Sandoval. Station 19 airs Thursdays at 8 p.m. ET on ABC…
Huzzah! Hulu has renewed The Great for a 10-episode third season. The series, from The Favourite writer Tony McNamara, stars Elle Fanning as the fiercely feminist Catherine the Great, who plots to overthrow her petulant husband, Emperor Peter III of Russia, played by Nicholas Hoult. Season two, which picks up with Catherine about to take her place on the throne, debuted on Hulu this past November…
Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom and The Suicide Squad star Viola Davis is in talks to star in the original Amazon drama Two Butterflies, according to Deadline. The plot follows two estranged sisters who are torn apart by tragedy and forced to reunite when one sister must be transported to an Alzheimer’s facility. Davis also serves as a co-producer on the project…
Two men have been taken into police custody in connection with the November shooting death of rapper Young Dolph in Memphis, Tennessee.
Justin Johnson, 23, was captured on Tuesday afternoon, the U.S. Marshals Service said, nearly a week after law enforcement announced he was wanted by police in connection with a number of alleged charges, including first-degree murder, criminal attempted first-degree murder and property theft.
A second suspect was indicted by a grand jury on Tuesday on first-degree murder charges in the shooting death of the Memphis rapper, said Shelby County District Attorney General Amy Weirich.
Cornelius Smith, 32, was indicted on additional charges of attempted first-degree murder, convicted felon in possession of a firearm, employment of a firearm in the commission of a dangerous felony and property theft. He is being held without bond.
Young Dolph’s brother, who was with the rapper when he was killed, is the victim in the attempted murder count.
Smith was arrested on Dec. 9 in Southaven on an auto-theft warrant involving the white Mercedes Benz vehicle that was used in the killing of Young Dolph, the U.S. Marshals Service said. The vehicle was taken in a carjacking on Nov. 10 at a gas station and was found on Nov. 20 — three days after the murder — behind a home in Orange Mound, where a tipster said it was abandoned.
Young Dolph, whose given name was Adolph Robert Thornton Jr., was shot and killed in Memphis on Nov. 17 while visiting Makeda’s Homemade Butter Cookies, a bakery in South Memphis that the rapper was known to frequent. He was 36.
(WASHINGTON) — The latest government data on inflation indicates consumer prices are continuing their rapid rise as pandemic-battered supply chains struggle to keep up with rebounding consumer demand.
The consumer price index — a measure of the prices Americans pay for a market basket of everyday goods and services — jumped 7% over the last 12 months, the Labor Department said Wednesday. This marks the largest one-year increase since the period ending in June 1982, the DOL noted.
The so-called core index, or measure for all items except the more volatile food and energy indices, climbed 5.5% over the last year — the largest 12-month change since February 1991. The core index spiked 0.6% in December, building on the 0.5% increase seen in November.
The energy index alone rose a whopping 29.3% over the last year (driven hikes in the gas index), and the food index increased 6.3%.
Steep climbs in the prices for shelter and used cars and trucks were the largest contributors driving up the all items index in December, the DOL said, but the indexes for household furnishings, apparel, new vehicles and medical care also increased in December. The indexes for motor vehicle insurance and recreation were among the few to decline last month.
The index climbed 0.5% in December, a slight reprieve from the 0.8% seen in November.
The fresh data comes as economists and policymakers decide how to respond to inflation as data indicates it isn’t going away. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said Tuesday the Fed is prepared to raise interest rates faster than originally planned to respond to the climbing prices.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(MELBOURNE) — Tennis world No. 1 Novak Djokovic is apologizing for an “error of judgement” related to an in-person interview he conducted last month after being exposed to COVID-19 as he continues to fight to stay in Australia and compete in the first major of the year.
Djokovic, who is tied for first all time with 20 major wins, released a new statement Wednesday midday local time in Melbourne explaining the timeline of several public appearances around when he tested positive for COVID in December — which he says should allow him to compete in the Australian Open despite apparently not being vaccinated.
“I want to address the continuing misinformation about my activities and attendance at events in December leading up to my positive PCR COVID test result,” he wrote in an Instagram post. “This is information which needs to be corrected, particularly in the interest of alleviating broader concern in the community about my presence in Australia, and to address matters which are very hurtful and concerning to my family.”
Djokovic said he attended a basketball game in his home country of Serbia on Dec. 14, where he later found out several people had tested positive for the virus. He took a rapid test two days later, despite no symptoms, and was found to be negative, he wrote. He took a PCR test — which are generally more accurate than rapid tests — “out of an abundance of caution” on the same day.
The next day he took another rapid test that was negative prior to presenting awards to children at a tennis event. Photos from the event show Djokovic on stage presenting the awards to children while not wearing a mask.
He said he was feeling well and did not find out he had tested positive for COVID-19 on the PCR test until after attending the event.
But Djokovic also admitted in Wednesday’s post that he continued on with an interview and photoshoot with the French outlet L’Equipe despite being aware of his positive PCR result and said his attendance was “an error of judgement.”
“I felt obliged to go ahead and conduct the L’Equipe interview as I didn’t want to let the journalist down, but did ensure I socially distanced and wore a mask except when my photograph was being taken,” he wrote. “When I went home after the interview to isolate for the required period, on reflection, this was an error of judgement and I accept that I should have rescheduled this commitment.”
Djokovic was turned away by officials when trying to enter Australia last week, saying the country’s strict COVID restrictions prevented him from competing. Djokovic has been open previously about not getting vaccinated and officials said he did not submit a valid medical excuse to not receive a shot.
But the tennis star won his case in court on Monday to overturn his visa cancellation and began training for the event even as Australian government officials said they were debating whether to use discretionary powers to revoke the defending champion’s visa.
In Wednesday’s statement, Djokovic said someone from his team had incorrectly filled out the form that claimed he had not left Spain for 14 days prior to traveling to Australia — even though a post on Instagram showed him with Serbian handball player Petar Djordjic in their home country on Christmas.
“My agent sincerely apologises for the administrative mistake in ticking the incorrect box about my previous travel before coming to Australia,” Djokovic wrote. “This was a human error and certainly not deliberate. We are living in challenging times in a global pandemic and sometimes these mistakes can occur.”
He said he’d submitted paperwork to the Australian government to clear up the error, a fact reiterated in a statement from Immigration Minister Alex Hawke.
In a statement given Wednesday local time, Hawke told ABC News: “Mr. Djokovic’s lawyers have recently provided lengthy further submissions and supporting documentation said to be relevant to the possible cancellation of Mr Djokovic’s visa. Naturally, this will affect the timeframe for a decision.”
The Australian Open begins on Jan. 17. Djokovic has won the tournament the last three years and nine times overall.
ABC News’ Britt Clennett contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — When the omicron variant first began sweeping the country, there was some hope that because initial studies indicated it was less severe, it would prove to have less of an impact on the health care system.
However, given its increased transmissibility, the unprecedented explosion of cases is proving otherwise, leaving a record 146,000 coronavirus positive patients hospitalized across the country.
The record-smashing omicron surge, right on the heels of the crushing delta surge of the summer and fall, is pushing many overtaxed hospital systems over the edge — systems facing staffing shortages, patients seeking care for non-COVID-related ailments adding to the burden. The increased pressure also comes despite having 62.6% of the country fully vaccinated and an array of treatments at their disposal.
“Even though they say omicron is probably more mild, I don’t think we’re necessarily seeing that with the unvaccinated,” Dr. Raymond Lee Kiser, a hospitalist and nephrologist at Columbus Regional Health in Indiana, told ABC News. “Here in Indiana, this sort of second wave just superimposed right on top of delta.”
Across the state, a record 3,400 COVID-19-positive patients are currently hospitalized. In mid-November, there were already more than 1,100 patients receiving care.
“There was barely time to breathe before omicron rolled right on over top of us. It really is just like a second surge right on top of the last one.”
On average, more than 18,000 virus-positive Americans are being admitted to the hospital each day, a figure which has more than doubled since early December. In addition, approximately 80% of staffed adult intensive care unit beds are occupied, with more than 23,000 Americans with COVID-19 currently requiring ICU-level care.
Health care workers interviewed by ABC News and officials say the vast majority of those who are severely ill are unvaccinated, leading hospital staff to plead for people to get their shots.
‘Very overwhelming’
Echoing many of her colleagues in numerous health care settings, nurse Becky Bevi, at Columbus Regional Health in Indiana told ABC News she is exhausted.
“Two years later, I’m frustrated,” said Bevi, who has staffed her hospital’s main COVID-19 unit since the beginning of the pandemic. “I feel like this should have been zapped in the first year. Just frustration, tired, exhausted from constantly dealing with it, watching death. It’s just so much and I don’t feel like it’s going to go away anytime soon.”
In Wisconsin, nurse Hilary Krieger, said she often feels overwhelmed, given the constant uncertainty that surrounds the virus.
“It’s hard to explain. It’s lonely. It feels very overwhelming at times,” Krieger said.
In the emergency department at Baystate Health, in western Massachusetts, nurse Thomas Mapplebeck, told ABC News that the staff is burned out.
“We’re working 12- to 14-hour shifts on Sundays up to 16-hour shifts. Breaks are minimal and it’s just that busy, and people are just that sick. Some of us are pushing more than 60 hours a week,” Mapplebeck said.
Nationwide, nearly 30% of hospitals, for which data is available, are reporting that they are experiencing a critical staffing shortage.
Mapplebeck shared his harrowing experiences caring for coronavirus patients over the course of the last two years in the hospital’s 20-bed emergency room.
“We have patients of all age brackets with no medical history, unable to breathe, their bodies unable to compensate and overcome their symptoms. For some, we take over their breathing for them, we transport them to the trauma center where despite all efforts, they die,” Mapplebeck said. “We have 40-year-olds that are trying to walk to the bathroom and get short of breath and collapse and they need resuscitation.”
Sicker, faster
Kaila Sizemore, a nurse at Columbus Regional Health, explained that patients appear to be getting sicker, more quickly, compared to previous surges. While the disease was somewhat “more progressive” during the first wave, Sizemore said, now patients suddenly need oxygen and to be transferred to the ICU.
“It’s just how quickly and unexpectedly I think that people change has kind of been hardest for me,” she added.
At Maine’s Northern Light Health, this state’s latest surge is the “worst” the staff has ever seen.
“The numbers are crazy,” said Melissa Vail, assistant vice president of Ambulatory Care Management. “Our staff is scared. I don’t know that we have ever seen anything like this and I don’t know that we will ever see anything like it.”
Northern Light nurse Allison Leary has also been caring for a growing number of COVID-19-positive children.
“It’s challenging taking care of little people … little kids, and it’s sometimes very emotionally draining and intense,” said Leary.
Nationwide, pediatric hospital admissions have surged to a record high, with an average of 830 children admitted to the hospital with COVID-19 each day.
“I’m saddened by the fact that we’re seeing more kids with it now,” Leary said.
Vast majority of those critically ill are unvaccinated
According to health officials, the vast majority of those who are critically ill in the hospitals continue to be the unvaccinated.
“The sickest of the sick that we are seeing now with the patients that are not vaccinated. COVID patients that come in and go home are the ones typically that are vaccinated. They get fluids, medications if needed, and then go home to recuperate,” said Mapplebeck, the nurse from Baystate. “This vaccine doesn’t put an invisible shield around you like a superhero. It’s meant to jumpstart your immune system. So when and if you do become sick with COVID, your body is ready to fight, which gives you a fighting chance.”
Kiser added that he has witnessed a dichotomy between those who are vaccinated and unvaccinated. The course for the vaccinated patients, is much milder, he said, typically only requiring a few days of medications, and often, they are able to go home without any oxygen therapy. In addition, the patients who end up getting transferred from the medical floor to the critical care unit are “almost exclusively” unvaccinated.
“If it weren’t for that group of people … I don’t think we would feel sort of as physically and emotionally crushed as we do right now,” Kiser said.
Mapplebeck, Kiser, of Columbus Regional Health, and others stressed that people should get vaccinated in order to help decrease the number of people who need hospital beds, and give those who are really sick a chance to get the care they truly need.
“Nobody wants to go get a shot, but you know, do this. If you’re not going to do it for yourself. Do it for your community. All the hospitals are just struggling right now. All the health care providers are struggling. We’re all hurting,” pleaded Kiser.
