Hospitals across Dallas are preparing for a potential coronavirus case increase in January due to holiday travel and the new variant omicron. Omicron, , is more transmissible than delta, the coronavirus variant that led to a surge in Texas and across the country at the end of July.
鈥淲e鈥檙e very concerned,鈥� said Stephen Love, the president and CEO of the . 鈥淪o if you take where we鈥檙e currently at, and then add to it potential omicron cases, and you throw in the holidays as we move into winter time, we鈥檙e very, very concerned that we could have some type of big increase in hospitalizations in January and February.鈥�
Love said he鈥檚 worried about the current staffing shortages, where nurses and other healthcare workers have left the field due to burnout, headed into a potential COVID-19 surge.
鈥淵ou can have a bed, you can have the capacity, but you have to have the staff that鈥檚 going to service that bed,鈥� Love said. 鈥淥ur staff is tired. They鈥檙e worn out.鈥�
For Dr. David Winter who works in Internal Medicine at Baylor University Medical Center in Dallas, the past few weeks have shown an unsettling trend.
鈥淭he concern is our hospitals are already full,鈥� Winter said. 鈥淗ospitals are already pretty much bursting at the seams. A surge is going to be a challenge.鈥�
Love said that if people aren鈥檛 exercising caution over the next few weeks of holiday travel, 鈥渨e鈥檙e going to experience in January 2022 precisely what we experienced in 2021.鈥�
In December 2020 and January 2021, Texas had the . New cases hovered between 18,000 and 25,000 people infected with the virus statewide per day, with a high of 27,000 people on December 29.
鈥淥ver the past two years, we鈥檝e seen several surges,鈥� said Winter. 鈥淚t appears pretty clear to me that the surge occurs when we start to let our guard down. There's a lesson there. We can stop the spread of this virus if we just do the basic things we know work.鈥�
Love and Winter both said it鈥檚 important to note there are widely available vaccines and booster shots, plus options such as antibody treatment centers that aid in recovery if someone does have the virus. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) at least six months after the initial vaccine cycle, and at least two months after receiving a Johnson & Johnson vaccine.
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