Expert predicts Richmond-area hospitals to fill up within weeks; peak of cases not expected until late-May
RICHMOND, Va. (WWBT) - Richmond and Henrico’s health director predicts the area’s hospitals will start to fill up within weeks, but the state won’t hit its peak of the coronavirus outbreak until late-May.
Dr. Danny Avula gave an update on how COVID-19 is spreading within the city Wednesday, and says despite commercial testing becoming more widely available across commercial labs, there will be a lag time as health care officials wait for the test results, meaning that there are likely more positive COVID-19 cases than can be reported.
“There will be a reporting lag that the state is trying to sort out and we will try to get better at it as we go along," he said.
Avula says that one of the areas that will be hardest hit is congregate-care facilities which are where most positive COVID-19 cases have been concentrated in Henrico.
“This will be the next phase of how the disease presents in our community - we’re going to see more and more clusters of illness in communities of very vulnerable individuals in nursing homes in assisted living facilities,” said Avula.
During the press conference, Avula confirmed at the Virginia Home at Byrd Park there is currently a staff member who tested positive for COVID-19 in addition to six residents who also tested positive for the diseases.
“We have a few more symptomatic individuals who we are waiting on tests for and then we’ll continue to expand that ring of testing and do we start testing asymptomatic individuals,” said Avula.
The Health Director also shed more light on the Canterbury Rehab center which has over 37 confirmed cases and 11 deaths. He says at this point all residents have been tested but he expects those numbers to rise.
Avula says people can expect healthcare providers to soon start testing individuals who are not exhibiting any symptoms of COVID-19 who may have had contact with know positive cases.
“Despite screening staff, taking temperatures, restricting visitors and quarantining patients as soon as we identify that they are ill disease continues to spread,” he said. “The nature of this disease is that because we’re seeing more and more that it spreads in individuals who don’t have symptoms, it is incredibly difficult to contain."
Avula predicts that in two to three weeks, there may be so many cases that our public health infrastructure may not be able to sustain it.
Dr. Danny Avula says it’s only a matter of time before more grocery store workers catch the virus. Wednesday the Kroger on 1510 Eastridge Road in Richmond announced that an employee tested positive for COVID-19 and is currently in quarantine following an extensive sanitation procedure at the location.
“What we do know is that when somebody is coughing or sneezing those respiratory droplets can stay in the air for up to three hours, said Avula. “I do think it’s highly likely that both individuals going to the grocery store and employees of grocery stores will have this disease at some point.”
Avula says COVID-19 can stay in the air for hours which means social distancing is more important than ever especially while we people go shopping for essential items. He advises that people who need to go out, avoid shopping during peak hours.
“The stores have been enacting physical distancing by actually marking out where you stand in line and trying to maintain that six-foot distance. and I think those are important practices," said Avula.
Avula says the current projections of COVID-19 in the commonwealth have it peaking around late May to early June.
“We’ll have to continue to follow the data closely and see if that shifts one way or another, but based some of the epidemic curves we are seeing in other cities that’s where we are now, that’s what some of our estimates are showing,” said Avula.
At that time, the health director expects the next major impact to be to health care facilities across Virginia and expects there to be increased staffing shortages as hospitals become inundated with positive COVID-19 cases.
“We’ve been watching the news in cities like New Orleans, New York, Chicago, and Detroit and while we are behind them in a sense in that we are not seeing the same instances of disease as those other cities, we’re getting them quickly,” said Avula. “I’ve been in contact with a number of healthcare executives and they are furiously planning and preparing for this eventual surge."
During the press conference, Dr. Avula shared an encouraging update regarding the fatality rate of individuals who contract COVID-19 news. The health director says the latest COVID-19 fatality rates in the U.S. are less than previously projected.
“When we were looking specifically at numbers out of China and Italy the case fatality rate or the rate of people who have the disease and succumb to it was about two percent, but the more testing we’ve done and the more widespread we’ve seen testing of mildly symptomatic and asymptomatic individuals here in the U.S., we’ve seen that number drop to about 0.67 percent,” said Avula. “Six to seven out of 1000 individuals that contract COVID-19 are dying of it and so that is much better than the 2 out of 100 but still more serious and concerning than the flu which is about 1 out of 1000.”
Dr. Avula says by Thursday Henrico County will deploy 14 additional nurses and disease investigators to keep up with the increasing number of new COVID-19 cases.
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