Coast hospitals admitting more COVID patients as they brace for delta variant ‘surge’
Two of the Mississippi Coast’s three largest health systems are reporting increases in hospital occupancy because of positive COVID-19 patients.
Memorial Hospital at Gulfport and the Singing River Health System hospitals told the Sun Herald on Wednesday that they’ve seen higher numbers of coronavirus patients in recent weeks, while Merit Health in Biloxi did not record any significant increase in COVID-19 cases.
On Wednesday, the Mississippi State Department of Health added 13 new COVID-19 cases in Hancock County, 48 in Harrison and 23 in Jackson with a total of 119 in the six counties of South Mississippi. In the past two weeks, there have been three days of triple-digit increases in South Mississippi. Before that, the last triple-digit day was in late April.
Despite delta variant surges throughout the state, none of the coastal health systems reported concern about their intensive care unit availability. But that could change if the trend continues.
Singing River Health System has 21 COVID-19 positive patients across their three hospitals in Ocean Springs, Pascagoula and Gulfport. Six of those patients are in intensive care units.
“That’s about double to what we’ve been dealing with since about Easter,” Media Relations Director Sarah Duffey said. “Since the summer started and kids got out of school and mask mandates were lifted, we’ve held probably on average about 10 cases per day.”
Duffey said the cases at Singing River are not variant strains. The hospitals are seeing “maybe 10% of the delta variant in their samples,” but are expecting more cases as the strain trickles down from Jackson.
“We’re preparing for a surge of more severely ill patients who most likely haven’t been vaccinated,” she said.
State Health Officer Dr. Thomas Dobbs has said nearly all of Mississippi’s new coronavirus cases are of the delta variant.
“Delta is now the predominant strain circulating in the state, and accounts for most cases being identified at this point. Between June 15 and July 9 the Delta variant accounted for 80% of all specimens sequenced,” Dobbs said in a statement.
Twenty-three ICU beds are currently in use at Memorial Hospital at Gulfport, with four confirmed COVID-19 patients.
Memorial Hospital could not confirm if the COVID-19 cases are a certain variant.
The hospital has seen an increase in hospital occupancy over the past two weeks, according to a spokesperson, about the same amount of COVID-19 patients have come to their emergency room and bedded areas as right before the “huge” spike that occurred last November.
Merit Health in Biloxi has cared for four COVID-19 inpatients this month, said marketing director Lori Bickel.
The numbers are “significantly less” than what the hospital was seeing at its highest volumes last December, she said.
Merit Health could not confirm whether the variants were present in their patients.
This story was originally published July 14, 2021 at 12:00 AM.
