Local hospital admissions for COVID-19 rise 24.5%

Admissions for new patients with COVID-19 rose 24.5% compared to last week at hospitals operated by Ballad Health, system officials reported Wednesday.

Ballad treated 213 inpatients for the novel coronavirus on Wednesday, including 52 in intensive care units with 36 of them on ventilators. There were three pediatric cases in Niswonger Children’s Hospital, compared to none last Friday. Ballad had 171 inpatients last Wednesday and 150 the week prior.

Ninety percent of those 213 people — 192 — were unvaccinated against COVID-19 — a trend that has held steady since July — while every ICU patient was unvaccinated.

Ballad Health Chief Clinical Officer Dr. Amit Vashist said health care officials fear they’re at the beginning of a new surge.

“The way the numbers are increasing every single day, the [testing] positivity rate has risen, so all indicators are blinking red and pointing to the possibility we may be in the early stages of a third surge,” Vashist said Wednesday. “Our modeling is showing, if things continue the way they are, we could see in the next couple of weeks 230 to 300 patients, depending on where we land.”

Hospital admissions reached a record 413 in early September during the late summer surge before declining to around 300 and then around 200 per day. Inpatient levels remained relatively unchanged throughout much of November, averaging about 150 per day, but rose toward the end of the month.

With more cases came more hospitalizations, which increased from 158 inpatients on Nov. 19 to 171 last Friday and then topped 200 after the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, with 206 Tuesday. Ballad reported 88 new COVID admissions during the first three days of this week.

One year ago, the region felt the full fury of COVID-19, with hundreds of hospitalizations each week, but there are differences this year. Last year, many schools offered only remote learning, hand hygiene and masking were more prominent, and vaccines first became available around Christmas — which helped drive a “precipitous decline” in cases, Vashist said.

Multiple factors are likely contributing to the current surge.

“We can’t pinpoint one thing, but our suspicion is this is a combination of factors,” Vashist said. “Cases are rising; the weather is cooler, so people are staying indoors. I think as a society we have turned lax in masking, and some of those mandates that were there are long gone. People have just gotten tired of the pandemic, and it certainly doesn’t help that our vaccination rates continue to stagnate. All these and [that] the delta variant is much more severe and much more contagious has not helped the matter.”

About 45.4% of the region’s total population is fully vaccinated against COVID-19, a rate that continues to fall further behind state and national averages. About 49.5% of all Tennessee residents, 64.9% of all Virginia residents and 59.4% of all U.S. residents are fully vaccinated, according to the CDC.

More than 160,000 cases of COVID-19 have occurred in this region since the pandemic started, but doctors still know little about natural immunity.

“After disease, you are going to have some element of immunity, some element of antibodies,” Vashist said. “At what rate those antibodies decline is variable from person to person. … But people who have natural immunity and then get vaccinated within a reasonable time have much lesser severity of disease if they get reinfected with COVID-19. Vaccines are strongly recommended if you have or have not had COVID-19.”

Asked about the recently discovered omicron variant, Vashist said Ballad monitors the Centers for Disease Control and state health agencies for more information about how it could impact people here should it reach this area.

It is delta, Vashist said, that is sparking upticks here.

There were 1,968 new cases diagnosed during the past seven days across Northeast Tennessee and Southwest Virginia. Combined with 2,052 cases the previous week, the region has experienced 4,000 new cases in just the past two weeks.

There are presently 2,465 active cases in 10 Northeast Tennessee counties, according to the Tennessee Department of Health. Virginia doesn’t document “active” cases.

The week’s largest increase in new cases occurred in Sullivan County, which reported 435 new cases during the past week, compared to 330 new cases the week prior — a 32% increase. Sullivan has a seven-day testing positivity rate of 18% and reported more than 800 active cases.

Washington County in Tennessee reported 326 new cases in the past week and has over 600 active cases.

Carter, Greene and Hawkins counties reported more than 100 new cases apiece over the past week and have more than 600 combined active cases.

Testing positivity rates ranged from 5.8% in Cocke County and 9.8% in Unicoi — the only Northeast Tennessee counties in single digits — to 19.1% in Johnson County.

Reports of new cases declined 18% to 665 compared to 809 last week across the 10 counties and two cities of far Southwest Virginia, according to the Virginia Department of Health.

Six localities reported increases in new cases compared to the previous week led by Washington and Wise counties with 110 and 115 new cases, respectively. Six other localities reported declines. The biggest drop was in Dickenson County, which reported 102 new cases last week and 39 during the previous seven days.

Seven-day average testing positivity rates ranged from 1% in Buchanan County to 19.2% in Wise County.