SALEM, Ore. – The Oregon Health Authority reported 2,387 new cases of COVID-19 Thursday, which is a record number of cases, bringing the state total to 236,698. Nine more people died, raising the state’s death toll to 2,928.
While attending to hundreds of COVID-19 patients, hospitals across the state are full. Patients who should be in beds are being cared for on cots in other departments as doctors and nurses work extremely long shifts.
“Our doctors and nurses are exhausted and rightfully frustrated because this crisis is avoidable. It is like watching a train wreck coming and knowing that there’s an opportunity to switch tracks, yet we feel helpless while we watch unnecessary loss of life. That is why it is essential that we all do our part to get vaccinated and wear a mask indoors,” said David Zonies, M.D., M.P.H., M.B.A., FACS, FCCM, Associate Chief Medical Officer and Professor of Surgery at Oregon Health & Science University.
A Dr. Grant Niskanen in Klamath Falls said he’s seeing younger and sicker patients. He explained, “We had one person a couple weeks ago that got a lung transplant … we have a second person that now is being evaluated for a lung transplant, and when I talk about the patients — like nine or 10 that are currently in our hospital, that’s for an acute infection — that’s not talking about the four or five that have been here for 20 plus days, who are no longer infected, but still need such amounts of high flow oxygen that we’re unable to send them home.”
Dr. Niskanen says the key to all of this is to get vaccinated.
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