Medical Minute: Beacon physician offers update on increasing COVID-positive patients at hospitals
This week, we spoke with Beacon Medical Group President Dale Patterson and members of our Beacon Infection Prevention team about the status of COVID at Beacon and in our community.
We have recently seen an increase in:
- COVID-related emergency department visits at Beacon
- Community flu-like illness rate (patients reporting fever along with a cough or sore throat)
- Regional COVID positivity
The number of COVID-positive hospitalized patients has been fluctuating during the past month. Until the past week, hospitalizations had been lower than what we saw in September and October.
But in the last week, the number has increased significantly. Beacon Children’s Hospital also has many young patients with RSV. You can read more about RSV in this recent interview with our medical team.
“Right now, there isn’t any reason to panic, and there’s no need to think that things are going to get as bad as they did several years ago,” Dr. Patterson said in our Medical Minute (video below).
“Recently, we’ve seen an uptick in the number of patients admitted to our hospitals with COVID, and we’ve seen an increase in the number of people testing positive in our community,” he said. “But there are some simple things you can do to protect yourself and your family.”
Want to learn more?
If you want to learn more about the differences between COVID, flu, colds and RSV, click here. These respiratory illnesses have overlapping symptoms, so it might be hard to identify what you’re dealing with. Don’t worry, we can help you identify your symptoms and get you back on track.
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