Novant Health sees a surge in local COVID-19 hospitalizations and younger people hospitalized

NEW HANOVER COUNTY, NC (WWAY) —Novant Health says the surge in COVID-19 cases across the state is also being seen locally, as the Delta variant becomes the dominant strain.

Dr. West Paul, Novant Health’s Coastal Market Chief Clinical Officer, says the health care system has seen a dramatic increase in Covid-19 hospitalizations in critical care units and on the floors with regular patients.

The increase in hospitalizations locally is being attributed to the Delta variant.  With loosened restrictions, Dr. West Paul says this could also be driving the rapid uptick in coronavirus cases.

“We have not seen this rise to this extent even early on in our greatest numbers. We’re about 75% of what we saw in the December/January timeframe, with regard to COVID patients in-house, and actually our Novant Brunswick facility is even higher than they saw in the surge in December and January,” said Dr. West Paul, Novant Health’s Coastal Market Chief Clinical Officer.

Many of the patients hospitalized for COVID-19 are unvaccinated. More patients ages 18 to 50 are being hospitalized.

This age group also has the lowest percentage of vaccinations. The most troubling stat, some of the cases in the Novant system are children under the age of 12, not eligible for vaccination.

“Not only the COVID-19 patients, but we’re also seeing high censuses in our ED for regular diseases for other acute illnesses. So , this has become somewhat of a perfect storm coming together as we see hospitalizations go up for COVID as well as many of our emergency department actually being full with acute care patients going forward,” said Dr. West Paul.

Dr.Paul also said they are seeing more patients hospitalized in general for other diseases along with COVID-19 cases.

“Probably responsible for that lower average in age that we’re seeing now, pretty dramatic drop. This was, in December and January, this was really a disease that we mostly saw severe illness in the 65 and older, and I can’t say that now. We’re seeing it in the 40’s in 30’s with severe disease,” said Dr. Paul.

He said at this time visitation restrictions have not yet been limited across the board for hospitals yet.

“In the COVID ICU, which are –which again we are actually seeing filled up pretty quickly now. We are trying to maintain as much of, you know, visitation restrictions, by keeping family really at the front of this as much as possible, but it is a one on one evaluation basis of going in,” said Dr. Paul.

At this time, Novant Health officials are strongly advising people to get vaccinated and wear masks to further prevent the spread of the Delta variant.