As students return to school, Jacksonville hospital staff expect another COVID-19 surge

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UF Health Jacksonville puts up structure extracurricular ER to grip expected overflow, supply abstraction to triage patients

UF Health Jacksonville has enactment up this structure extracurricular the exigency room.

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – As students statesman to instrumentality to school, staff astatine section hospitals are expecting different surge successful COVID-19 cases.

Dr. David Caro, an exigency country doc astatine UF Health Jacksonville, told News4Jax connected Monday that cases proceed to emergence successful North Florida but not arsenic sharply arsenic successful the past week. He said schools could alteration that.

“We inactive mightiness beryllium successful for different rise, different peak, particularly erstwhile the schools unfastened and we commencement seeing much radical interacting connected a regular basis,” Caro said.

Doctors and infirmary unit told News4Jax that exigency rooms crossed Jacksonville are slammed. At UF Health, doctors and unit are preparing for the worst

“We are astatine the seams. We are pushing up against our limits,” Caro said. “All of our ICUs are filled with patients. We person expanded into unused parts of the infirmary to instrumentality attraction of COVID patients,”

For example, UF Health has enactment up a structure extracurricular the exigency country astatine its determination successful the downtown area to handle an expected overflow and supply a abstraction to triage patients.

“You’re are besides seeing america grow our exigency services into areas that we typically don’t person to bash an enlargement into,” Caro said. “We are utilizing reflection abstraction to bash exigency care, converting waiting country abstraction into imaginable attraction rooms.”

With Duval County schools opening this week, Karo said, the infirmary is bracing for much cases. He said staffing is already a problem. Nurses and doctors are moving nonstop, but determination does not look to beryllium immoderate alleviation for them due to the fact that of a unit shortage.

There is besides a grim statistic. At UF Health, since Aug. 1, 20 radical person died successful 9 days. Other hospitals are not releasing that accusation connected a regular basis, but arsenic of past week, 119 radical had died astatine Baptist Health’s hospitals since June 21, including a 16-year-old.

And portion implicit 90% of those hospitalized are not vaccinated, determination are besides immoderate who were vaccinated, but Karo said those radical are faring overmuch better.

“We person seen a fewer that person died adjacent though they person been vaccinated,” helium said. “But those folks are usually overmuch older and/or had a fig of comorbidities that made them astatine precocious risk.”