Projection by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation agrees with prediction that nationwide COVID-19 cases will likely start to drop
PeaceHealth Southwest Medical Center Chief Medical Officer Dr. Lawrence Neville said Wednesday that he expects the recent surge in COVID-19 cases to peak in early September.
Speaking in a news conference with members of the media Wednesday morning, Neville said PeaceHealth Southwest Medical Center currently has 69 patients being treated for the virus, as reported by FOX 12 Oregon (KPTV). Eighteen of those patients are in the intensive care unit. Neville said the hospital is near 95 percent of its capacity.
“We don’t think we’re quite through this fifth wave of COVID yet. We’re expecting, based on modeling, the numbers will peak in about another 10 days and that peak will be at about 90 COVID patients, roughly, at PeaceHealth Southwest,” said Neville, as reported by Fox 12 Oregon.
Dr. Jason Hanley, the medical director for the emergency department, reported that some COVID patients are being sent home with oxygen and getting follow up care there.
PeaceHealth Southwest PeaceHealth Southwest Medical Center officials recently set up a tent outside its emergency department to deal with the influx of patients. Hanley said it’s to expand the waiting room, so that people can keep a safe distance from one another.
More positive news coming
A new projection by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) agrees with Neville’s prediction that nationwide COVID-19 cases will likely start to drop around the beginning of September.
“We’re heading into a much better time simply because we have had a lot of infections around the country and we have a high percentage of people getting the vaccine,” said Dr. Ali Mokdad, of the IHME, as reported by Seattle’s KIRO 7 news.
Mokdad said that the result of the fifth surge in COVID-19 cases is that the delta variant will soon have fewer Americans to infect.
“Covid-19 in many places is running out of people to infect, so you see that decline,” Dr. Mokdad said.
By estimates, nationwide COVID-19 cases will start going down around the first week of September, with a continual decline through December. At this rate, health experts say the number of COVID-19 cases will likely be quite low during the holiday season. As a result, they insist there’s a chance people will be able to celebrate the holidays like normal.
“We could have close to a normal winter only if we do our part and no new variants in the United States,” said Dr. Mokdad.
