UVA Medical Center seeing slow decrease in COVID-19 patients

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (WVIR) - Doctors with the University of Virginia Medical Center say COVID-19 case counts and hospitalizations are down after an explosive post-holiday surge due to the omicron variant.

They say this dip in cases is coming after the highest numbers they’ve ever seen, even among children, but those numbers are dropping slowly.

As of Friday, February 11, there are 83 COVID-19 patients. According to Doctor Reid Adams, two-thirds of those patients are in acute care beds, while the other third are in the intensive care unit.

Dr. Adams says there are 11 pediatric COVID-19 patients in the hospital, a fairly high number.

A common thread among those in the ICU, they are not vaccinated.

“The people that we see in the ICU right now, about a third of our cases, only one of them was vaccinated and boosted, and that person was immunocompromised. That speaks to the importance of vaccinations ongoing in preventing serious illness,” said Doctor Kyle Enfield with UVA’s Special Pathogens Unit.

Despite a decline in case numbers and the COVID-19 positivity rate, Dr. Enfield says now is not the time to make major changes.

“Given where we are with the rate of positivity in our community and what we’ve seen in the hospital over the last several weeks, I still think we’re still in a situation where masking and vaccines are our best option for making things better for us,” the doctor said.

Dr. Adams said the medical center is looking to relax some of its current visitation limits. That chance could come as early as next week.

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