Jan. 21, 2022

COVID-19 update

Omicron continues to accelerate and each day we are setting new records. Earlier this week, we saw a single-day total of 896 positive COVID-19 tests, compared to our delta surge high of 183. We matched our record of 187 hospitalized COVID-19 patients and we continue to experience rolling seven-day positivity rates of 45%.

Some may consider omicron more mild, but that is no consolation for the families of those we have lost. We have had 882 deaths, 55 of those in January alone. Every one of these deaths represents the loss of a family member, neighbor or friend.

As has been the case throughout the pandemic, about 95% of our patients admitted for COVID-19 are unvaccinated. The fact is, unvaccinated patients are dying and almost all of the deaths occurring right now are preventable through vaccination.

The rising tide of omicron continues to affect our staff as well. We estimate that we have between 500 and 600 staff members out of work right now, which is about 4% of our work force.

New positive tests continue to trend upward and we expect the challenges of the current wave to last for another four to five weeks. We believe we are trending about two weeks behind St. Louis. We hope to see a sharp drop in cases after the peak, but this is a highly regionalized disease, and the drop may not be as sharp here as it has been in areas with higher vaccination rates.

Our teams are tired, but they continue to do outstanding work as we prepare for the worst and hope for the best.

School care program

Schools in our area took action this week to reduce exposures during the omicron tidal wave. To support our staff as schools close or transition to virtual learning, our Human Resources and Learning Center teams stepped up to reopen our school care program.

The program, which is designed for the children of CoxHealth employees, offers a hybrid of child care for schools that are closed and virtual learning for schools that are going remote.

The program will expand its capacity to serve as many as 200 students beginning next week.

I am grateful for the teams that made this happen and for the managers and other professionals who are volunteering to help.

Supporting staff

With many staff members out ill, we continue to find ways to support our staffing. Our Team 19 – a group of employees who have stepped up to assist outside their usual departments – now includes 494 staff members.

Several members of our Engineering Refresh team, for example, have joined Team 19. They have paused their construction duties to take on roles as unit assistants in the hospitals. They now spend overnight shifts doing linens, taking out trash and answering call lights to help our clinical teams focus on patient care.

In addition to our redeployed staff, we continue to add staff in our student support roles – more than 300 students have applied and we onboarded the first 44 students this week.

We also have more than 300 traveling staff members scheduled to arrive in the next two weeks.

Guide to COVID-19 care at home

For milder cases of COVID-19, we know most people prefer to recover at home when possible. To support community members who are managing their symptoms at home, we have added a page to our website that offers a complete guide to home care. You can see the page at this link.

Voice of the patient

From patient feedback at the Cox Branson Emergency Department: “Everyone was very kind and understanding. They treated my daughter amazingly.”

Thank you for all you do,
Steve

Direct Line from Steve Edwards: 1/21/2022