Hospitals seeing low amount of COVID-19 patients

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (WVIR) - Hospitals aren’t being overrun with COVID-19 patients for the first time in a while. This is good news as we head into the warmer months and with another variant on the prowl.

“I’d like to say that along with the lovely spring that we’re having that this is part of a new beginning, but we have been fooled before. So we just have to wait and see,” Dr. Reid Adams with UVA Health said.

COVID-19 hospitalizations recently hit a record low at UVA Health. Right now, there are five patients - one of them is in the ICU, and another is a pediatric patient.

“It is nice to know that our numbers are down and that people are not being hospitalized for COVID at the rate that we saw over the past year and a half or two years,” Dr. Adams said.

Almost 120 hospital beds were occupied at the peak of the omicron variant. A new variant of omicron, BA.2, is infecting more people. That raises questions about another potential spike in cases.

“I think the question that’s all on our mind is exactly how significant that bounce will be in terms of cases, case numbers,” Dr. Costi Sifri said. ‘What are the consequences of that in terms of hospitalizations? Those two things remain unclear right now.’”

Sentara Martha Jefferson Hospital reportedly has two patients with COVID-19, and says it is also getting ready for BA.2.

In a statement, Sentara says it is not anticipated that this subvariant will result in a surge of hospitalizations, even though it is more transmissible than the earlier omicron variant.

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