COVID wing at Tallahassee Memorial reopens as cases rise

As infections rise in Leon County, Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare reopened its own COVID-19 wing on Thursday.

“The reopening of this department enables us to provide the best care to more COVID-positive patients in a central negative pressure unit compared to individual negative pressure rooms,” said Stephanie Derzypolski, a TMH spokeswoman.

In addition, the hospital will not accept new non-emergency surgeries that require bed-stay inpatient from Thursday through Friday, July 30th. All elective surgeries planned in advance will continue as usual.

As of Wednesday, TMH reported 23 inpatients who tested positive for the virus, four more than on Monday 19.

The Capital Regional Medical Center saw an increase in hospital admissions and reported on Wednesday that 25 inpatients were positive for the virus.

The Tallahassee Democrat called the hospital for comment on a potential COVID wing but had no response until Thursday afternoon.

This announcement from TMH comes less than four months after celebrating the absence of COVID patients.

But this new surge in cases stems from what Dean Watson, chief integration officer at TMH, called an “unvaccinated pandemic.”

More local COVID news:

“The good news is that the COVID-19 vaccine has been shown to be incredibly effective against the Delta variant,” Watson previously told the Democrat. “For this reason, the delta variant spreads predominantly among the unvaccinated population.”

Of the 23 TMH inpatients who tested positive for COVID-19, only 2 were vaccinated.

“COVID-19 vaccines continue to be the best way to protect people from getting COVID-19 or becoming seriously ill with the virus, including reducing the risk of hospitalizations and death,” said a statement from TMH.

Leon County: 51 percent vaccinated

Florida Department of Health data shows that 51% of eligible people in Leon County have been vaccinated, well below the state average of 59%.

Last week, Leon County reported 426 new cases, up 62.1% from the previous week. There have been at least 34,089 cases and 332 deaths in Leon County as of March 2020.

As of Monday, the Sunshine State ranked second among the states where COVID-19 spread the fastest per person, according to an analysis by the USA TODAY Network of data from Johns Hopkins University. Florida’s new cases rose 91.4% for the week ended Sunday.

Contact Christopher Cann at ccann@tallahassee.com and follow @ChrisCannFL on Twitter.

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