CLEVELAND — COVID-19 hospitalizations are hitting record highs, and in some cases, hospitals are being forced to make tough decisions.
This weekend, the MetroHealth System announced the following locations will be closed through the end of the year: Brooklyn, Brunswick, Lyndhurst, Medina, Rocky River, State Road, and adult and child behavioral health at the Main Campus. A spokesperson said the move will consolidate staffing as the U.S. sees the most coronavirus hospitalizations since the start of the pandemic.
Lindsey Panicucci is an ICU nurse with MercyOne in Waterloo, Iowa.
"I’ve seen more people die in the last seven days than I’ve talked to my own family members," Lindsey Panicucci, an ICU nurse with MercyOne in Waterloo, Iowa, said. She added the surge is straining resources.
"We’re seeing community members coming in. They can’t breathe anymore, and so they come into the hospital--and it just seems to be nonstop."
The system is strapped, amid fears that the Thanksgiving holiday only fueled the surge. Since Nov. 1, COVID hospitalizations in the U.S. have doubled and are nearing 100,000.
In California, officials say cases could triple by Christmas. In New York, nurses at one hospital are on strike and protesting what they call inadequate staffing.
"We’ve been doing this through COVID, through the tears, through not going home, through being sick, through not eating, no breaks," said Laurie Valladarez of Montefiore, New Rochelle.
In Northeast Ohio, hospitals are adapting: Last week, Summa Health announced it would be suspending elective procedures temporarily. The Cleveland Clinic confirms it has the highest volume of COVID patients to date and will postpone all nonessential surgeries requiring a bed or an ICU everywhere in Ohio except Lutheran Hospital.
In a statement to 3News, University Hospitals says for now they have "adequate resources to care for all…inpatients and ambulatory patients without interruption."
But there may also be a silver lining in the form of fewer flu cases, so far.
"The flu travels by droplets, so if people are masked, we’re going to have less transmission of the flu," Dr. Claudia Hoyen, an infectious disease specialist at UH, said. "That’s really something we were hoping we would see."
Dr. Hoyen adds it is still important to get your flu shot if you have not yet.