ATLANTA (CN) — More Georgians are being hospitalized for Covid-19 than ever before, testing the limits of the state’s medical resources and putting extra strain on a health care system already strapped by a nursing shortage.
The Peach State is averaging 8,777 cases per day and currently has the third-highest number of hospitalizations for Covid-19 per 100,000 people in the country. Georgia’s Public Health Commissioner Dr. Kathleen Toomey said “virtually 100%” of cases are due to the delta variant.
The Georgia Department of Health reported Thursday that a record-breaking 6,003 Covid-positive patients are currently hospitalized. The previous record was 5,814 on Jan. 12.
“We are now approaching among the worst cases in both case numbers and hospitalizations that we’ve had since January -- in some cases, actually worse in some parts of the state than we were in January,” Toomey said at a press conference Monday.
The state currently ranks among the highest for newly reported Covid-19 cases, with a rolling seven-day average of 9,462, the most since January.
The dramatic increase in infections is putting a strain on hospital resources. Ninety-five percent of Georgia’s ICU beds are currently occupied.
The record-breaking numbers prompted Governor Brian Kemp on Monday to commit to sending up to 2,500 Georgia National Guard troops to hospitals around the state. Kemp deployed 105 medically-trained Guard members to the 10 hardest-hit hospitals last week.
The newly assigned troops will perform nonmedical tasks like directing traffic or cleaning rooms.
“It’s a real morale booster to let the people working in the hospitals know we’re listening to them,” Kemp said.
Dr. Dilani Weerasuriya, assistant program director of emergency medicine at Wellstar Kennestone Regional Medical Center in Marietta, said in a phone interview Thursday that some National Guard troops are helping to begin the intake process for patients by starting IVs and performing blood draws.
She said their presence is helping to improve the hectic pace of operations at the hospital, which has the largest emergency department in the Southeast.
But Weerasuriya admitted that keeping morale up in the face of Georgia’s rapidly rising case numbers is an issue. She said staving off burnout has become more difficult for some staff members than during the state’s last pandemic peak in January.
“At least in January we were kind of expecting [the increase] but we were thinking the vaccine’s coming and we saw kind of an end in sight,” Weerasuriya said. “But then it just kind of kept going and now it’s coming again. We don’t know when that ending’s going to be and we’re preparing for it to get worse.”
The stress and uncertainty have worsened the nursing shortage in Georgia, which already had one of the lowest ratios of nurses to population before the start of the pandemic last year. According to data compiled Friday by the nursing job placement service Vivian, there are more than 6,000 vacant nursing positions in the state.
Almost 1,200 of those are in intensive care units.
In a survey of nearly 1,300 nurses across the country, Vivian found that 43% of respondents said they were considering leaving the healthcare industry. The number was higher among ICU workers, 48% of whom said they were considering leaving in 2021.
For many health care professionals, constantly battling the rising tide of Covid-19 cases takes a significant emotional and psychological toll. More than 80% said they felt their mental health had been impacted over the last year.
Marissa Gardella is one of them.
Gardella left her job as a cardiac outpatient nurse at a metro Atlanta hospital in June due to overwhelming stress. In addition to her typical duties, she was also assigned to work in the hospital’s vaccination clinic and on the phone triaging patients.
“For the month of June, I was having anxiety just going into work,” Gardella said in a phone interview with Courthouse News. “I would have these panic attacks just driving into work.”
When she first signed onto the job, Gardella was told that she could work four 10-hour days and have a day off. But as time went on and demands on the hospital increased, that possibility quickly evaporated.
“There’s not enough balance,” she said. “My health started to deteriorate. I started to have a lot of stomach issues and my anxiety got out of control. I wasn’t resting.”
Gardella said she often felt overwhelmed and unappreciated.
“We’re trying as hard as we can. We’re showing up. But if we don’t have the resources it can get a little frustrating,” she said.
The best way to alleviate the pressure on the state’s health system is to get more people vaccinated, public officials have said. Georgia currently has one of the lowest vaccination rates in the country, with just 41% fully vaccinated according to the Mayo Clinic.
Attempts to expand vaccine capacity have been met with hostility.
During Monday’s briefing, Toomey said several recent inoculation drives were interrupted by anti-vaccination protesters who harassed workers. One mobile vaccination event was forced to shut down altogether.
“I just said this is wrong. It’s absolutely wrong,” Toomey said. “These people are giving their lives to help others, to help us in the state. We in Georgia can do better. We should be thanking these individuals who are trying to get lifesaving vaccines to our state.”
Toomey said Monday that the state has the capacity to vaccinate more people, “we just aren’t getting people coming to be vaccinated.”
Although Kemp has supported voluntary vaccination efforts, the Republican governor staunchly refuses to implement mask mandates to help stymie the spread of infection.
“We shouldn’t be fighting about this,” Kemp said of sparring over masks. “It’s just causing division, it’s causing people’s blood pressure to go up. We need to continue to educate and advocate for people to get the vaccine.”
The debate over mask mandates became especially contentious as schools opened up last month. Only about half of Georgia public schools have mask mandates, causing them to become ever-growing sources of Covid-19 infections.
More than half of the 170 outbreaks that have recently occurred statewide happened in K-12 schools, Toomey said.
“We are seeing a significant number of cases among school-aged children and those have quadrupled over the last several weeks. The sharpest increase is in children aged 11-17,” Toomey said.
Fifteen children under the age of 17 have died from the virus, according to the Georgia Department of Health.
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