WA Hospitalization Rates Decline, But COVID Metrics Remain High

WASHINGTON — Washington hospital leaders are cautiously welcoming a sustained decline in new COVID-19 patients, but in a news conference Monday noted that the current curve remains much higher than previous peaks, death rates have yet to fall, and the uncertainty of the autumn and winter ahead all make it too early to tell whether the state has turned a corner.

"I feel better, right this minute, that the hospitalizations are starting to go down," said Cassie Sauer, CEO of the Washington State Hospital Association. "However, in late June [or] early July, we would not have predicted we were going to be in the worse shape ever, as we are now. I think it's hard to hold really serious optimism because this disease is so tricky and so opportunistic."

Citing state data, Sauer said there were 1,277 patients hospitalized across the state with COVID-19 as of Monday morning, down from 1,504 patients the Monday before. Case counts have also trended downward at a slower pace, but death rates remain elevated.

"The state is reporting about 30 deaths every day," Sauer said. "This is a tragic, tragic number. Especially since all or nearly all of these deaths are preventable."

At Bellevue's Overlake Hospital, staffers have contended with an uptick in patients with COVID-19 since August. Over the last two weeks, intensive care admissions have leveled off, but more of the patients admitted early on are dying.

"A lot of the really sick people with delta are not really getting better once they go on a ventilator," said Dr. Radha Agrawal, a pulmonologist and critical care medicine specialist at Overlake. "We're able to kind of pull through the patients who are on less invasive devices, but once they get on the ventilator, the rate of success has been really, really low. That's been really hard for us as doctors and providers to deal with. The success rate is so much lower this year than it was last year in terms of getting these people off the ventilator."

Hospitals are also facing staff burnout, a nursing shortage and facilities so full that many non-emergency surgeries, including cardiac operations and cancer treatments, have to be postponed. Health care leaders are also worried about the unpredictable impact of the approaching flu season.

"I just don't know what the winter is going to bring," Agrawal said. "The way we're working right now ... is our nurses are pretty much being pushed to the max. If we have more flu on top of that, I don't know what our plans are. I just don't see it going very well."

To help alleviate the stress on the health care system, officials continue to urge those who remain unvaccinated to seek out their COVID-19 shots, along with their seasonal flu shots. Sauer said the state is also working to obtain more monoclonal antibody treatments, which are allocated through the federal government. Officials hope to make them more available outside of the hospital, including through clinics and pharmacies.

"They work pretty well; they don't work as well as vaccines," Sauer said. "We see people thinking that monoclonal antibodies are sort of a 'get out of jail free card' because they didn't get vaccinated. They're helpful, but they're not as good. Getting vaccinated is still your best bet."

Asked about the potential staffing impacts resulting from health care workers who fail to meet the state's Oct. 18 deadline for becoming vaccinated, Sauer said the vaccine rates had improved in recent weeks but losing any medical staff remains a big concern. The WSHA is working with the governor's office and the Washington State Department of Health and plans to collect data from members in the next week to get a better picture of the immunization rates among the state's health care workers.