Tag: health care
More Than 15% of COVID-19 Tests in Jefferson County are Positive
This past week, 1,700 new individuals per day have been tested for the coronavirus in Jefferson County, with an average of 278 people a day testing positive and two a day dying. Those numbers give the county a positivity rate that tops 15%, the highest of any one week so far during the pandemic, county Health Officer Dr. Mark Wilson said in a briefing Tuesday.
Hospitals in Jefferson County are caring for 275 patients with the virus; 110 of those are in intensive care units and 52 on ventilators, Wilson said. Read more.
Not Just in the Lungs: Coronavirus Causes Blood Clots, Attacks the Brain, Can Result in Strokes and Organ Damage
In March, a Chinese researcher warned scientists and doctors to expect the unexpected with COVID-19.
That researcher hit it on the nose, said UAB pulmonary critical care physician Dr. Sheetal Gandotra. “We had a lot to learn about the risk factors, symptoms, course of the disease, organ systems affected and recovery. But the basic tenets of excellent critical care remain the same.”
As doctors treat COVID-19 patients with a constellation of symptoms and organ damage, researchers continue to try to determine health outcomes for virus survivors. They have no long-term studies to guide them, because the disease surfaced in China in November 2019.
Initially, COVID-19 was thought of as a respiratory disease. But now, studies show the virus spreads its deadly effects through blood clots to the brain, heart, kidneys, endothelial cells that line blood vessels and other vital organs. From looking at the damage, some researchers have said a subset of patients who contract the coronavirus may suffer long-term damage from the disease.
Autopsies of COVID victims have found that the virus attacked the lungs the most ferociously, but the pathogen was found in other vital body organs. Pathologists found that oxygen deprivation to the brain and the formation of blood clots may start early in the disease process. Read more.
Health Care Disparities: Black Doctors Have Been Rare, but a Local Physician’s Experience May Point the Way Toward Building Numbers
Trust — or a lack of it — can become a barrier when it comes to health care.
Black patients sometimes get less effective treatment than similar white patients, and sometimes that’s because they don’t trust doctors of a different race as much as they do doctors who look like them.
And yet, there are relatively few Black doctors in the U.S. The Association of American Medical Colleges reported that, in 2018, there were about 807,400 active physicians in the country and only 45,534 of them were black. Experts see it as a problem.
“Black Americans make up more than 13% of the U.S. population, yet only 5% of physicians are black,” wrote National Public Radio’s Yuki Noguchi in a story that appeared July 1. “That lack of representation isn’t just a problem within medicine … but it perpetuates a sense that medical and mental health care is not of — or for — the Black community.”
Read more.
Residents, Employees at Veterans Nursing Homes Test Positive for COVID-19
At the end of June, after completing a round of testing for the coronavirus at the state’s four veterans homes, the state Department of Veterans Affairs reported that all of the residents at the homes were “virus free.”
That is no longer the case.
The department reported Monday that after additional testing last week, nine residents and seven employees at the William F. Green State Veterans Home in Bay Minette tested positive for the coronavirus. So have seven employees at the Colonel Robert L. Howard State Veterans Home in Pell City, three at the Floyd “Tut” Fann State Veterans Home in Huntsville and four at the Bill Nichols State Veterans Home in Alexander City.
Read more.
Health Care Disparities: ZIP Code, Race Predict Lifelong Health Inequities
On the day he’s born, the average white resident of Jefferson County is expected to live about 3.5 years longer than the average Black resident.
Jefferson County’s Black residents have higher rates of death due to heart disease, diabetes, stroke and “malignant neoplasms,” or cancerous tumors, than their white neighbors, according to the Jefferson County Health Action Partnership’s 2018 Community Health Equity Report, which studied county and state health statistics.
Infant mortality and low birth weights are twice as likely to occur among black newborns as white ones.
These differences are clear when data is broken down by ZIP code. Historically Black neighborhoods, such as College Hills, Fountain Heights and Titusville, show some of the lowest life expectancies and highest rates of disabilities and infant mortality in the county. Majority-white areas tend to show better health outcomes, an effect that is most pronounced in high-income areas such as Mountain Brook and Vestavia Hills.
In this, Jefferson County mirrors the rest of the nation. Black Americans generally have more health problems and chronic illnesses, and consequently shorter life expectancy. Read more.
The Legacy of Race is an ongoing series about how the history of racism and segregation in Alabama affect the society we live in today. Read the stories published so far.
Amid Record COVID-19 Cases, Near-Capacity Hospitals Prep For July 4th Influx
With COVID-19 patients already filling beds at a record pace, hospitals across Alabama are bracing for an influx of people infected at Fourth of July gatherings.
Statewide hospitalizations Wednesday were 1,110, the highest number yet, Dr. Don Williamson, president and CEO of the Alabama Hospital Association said Thursday.
The state also had 163 admissions, the highest one-day number of new patients due to COVID-19. The state was down to 206 intensive care unit beds available, which is 12% of capacity, the lowest rate yet during the pandemic.
“The concern is that all the numbers we are using to monitor the outbreak moved in the wrong direction,” Williamson said. Read more.
Face Masks Required Throughout Jefferson County, Health Officer Orders
Jefferson County Health Officer Dr. Mark Wilson on Friday issued a mandatory mask-wearing order to begin Monday at 5 p.m. in an effort to reduce the increasing number of countywide COVID-19 cases.
“The virus is getting worse in Jefferson County, and we are moving in the wrong direction,” Wilson said. Read more.
Jefferson County Plans to Set Up COVID-19 Nursing Home Unit
Jefferson County Commissioners today OK’d establishing a dedicated unit to care for nursing home patients who have COVID-19 in one location. The commission authorized an agreement with the UAB board of trustees to establish the unit. The plan calls for Jefferson County to use a portion of its Cares Act funds for this project, which will put patients in a wing of Aspire Physical Recovery Center at Hoover. Read more.
Low ICU Capacity Could Affect Non-Coronavirus Patients the Most
WBHM
Alabama’s ICU capacity has fallen to 19% as coronavirus cases continued to climb steadily across the state. That amounts to about 300 ICU beds of 1,600 available statewide. Alabama confirmed 787 new cases Friday, bringing the total to 28,583. While the number of hospitalizations has fluctuated slightly, overall it has trended upward since the pandemic began. That’s concerning to Dr. Don Williamson, president of the Alabama Hospital Association.
For more on the impact on hospitals, WBHM spoke with Williamson. Read more.
UAB Treating Its Highest Number of Coronavirus Patients Since the Pandemic Began, Health Experts Say
The number of hospital patients with COVID-19 and people testing positive for the virus continues to spiral across Alabama and in Jefferson County, health experts participating in a UAB Hospital press conference said Monday.
In the past seven to 14 days, 8% of people tested for the coronavirus had been showing positive results. But in the past seven days, that proportion has risen to 13%, said Dr. Jeanne Marrazzo, director of UAB’s Division of Infectious Diseases. Seattle, once a hotspot, is now down to 1.5%, she added.
Today, UAB has 68 COVID-19 patients, which Marazzo said is the highest number ever.
Usually about half the UAB patients with COVID-19 are on ventilators. Read more.
