Merrilee Kazarian wears a face mask while waiting for the ferry in downtown San Diego on July 7, 2022. Kazarian says there has been an uptick in cases and she’s had 4 shots for Covid-19 “I don’t want a mild case and I’m a healthy person.” (Ariana Drehsler/TNS)
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(Tribune News Service) — Though local coronavirus case rates held steady for another week, hospitalizations continued to climb in San Diego County, surpassing the highs recorded during this year’s summer surge and tracking with numbers recorded one year earlier.
A total of 481 patients with confirmed coronavirus infections were listed in non-military hospitals Thursday, up from 425 one week earlier. On Dec. 29, 2021, the state listed 475 patients with COVID-19.
No information was available on exactly how many of these hospital stays were primarily caused by the virus and how many were simply incidental to another reason for admission such as elective surgery. Previously, the state health department has estimated that about half of hospitalizations with positive coronavirus test results were primarily admitted for a different diagnosis.
The increase did not seem to be straining local medical capacity with Sharp HealthCare, the region’s largest medical provider, indicating that its hospitals had a 69 percent bed occupancy rate with 149 COVID-19 patients in total.
Thus far, said John Cihomsky, vice president of communications for Sharp, the volume has not been high enough to force cancellation of other scheduled medical procedures as occurred in the winter of 2020 and 2021.
County data continues to show a significant hospitalization advantage for those who were vaccinated. Including those who have received boosters and those who have not, the county found a hospitalization rate of 2.6 per 100,000 residents for the unvaccinated and a rate of 1 per 100,000 for those who were vaccinated.
Many expect a COVID-19 hangover from the holiday season, especially last weekend’s Christmas festivities. Given that the incubation period — the amount of time a virus spends replicating itself inside the body before it starts causing symptoms — is about three days for Omicron variants, the county’s latest report would not be expected to show the effects of Christmas weekend.
Indeed, this week’s report shows that overall confirmed cases last week were 4,613, just about equal to the 4,622 cases confirmed two weeks ago.
The amount of virus detected in local wastewater has been a more-complete and more-immediately-updated barometer of viral activity, but data had not been updated as of 3 p.m. Friday.
Though overall COVID-19 death rates have been low — averaging less than 1 per million residents — the virus continues to kill San Diegans. Eighteen new entries were added this week. The youngest was age 71 with all having other medical problems present at the time of death.
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