Need a COVID test? Coast hospital sites are swamped as omicron surge breaks records
As Mississippi shatters COVID-19 case totals this week, the Gulf Coast’s largest hospitals are reporting a massive increase in testing demand which have resulted in high positivity rates, but little need for hospital treatment.
Singing River Health System and Memorial Hospital at Gulfport are recording triple-to-quadruple the amount of COVID testing at their facilities as the virus’ fifth wave kicks off across the state with the arrival of the omicron variant, more than 50% more transmissible than the delta strain.
The Mississippi State Department of Health reported 6,592 COVID cases on Wednesday, the new one-day record for the state. August 20, 2021 was the previous record case count, when the state saw 5,048 cases.
South Mississippi saw 1,261 new cases on Tuesday, the highest one-day total since August. There were no additional deaths.
Omicron has quickly overtaken the delta strain in Mississippi, becoming the dominant variant over a three-week time period. Health officials say omicron’s symptoms are milder despite the dangerously high infection rates.
Matt Walker, Memorial’s vice president of clinic operations, said the health system is seeing a stronger demand for testing.
“We’re seeing a very rapid uptick in COVID positives,” he said. “Now, the good news is, we have not seen a mad rush of patients requiring an inpatient bed. So the omicron variant seems to be the main bug that we’re encountering, because the symptoms are a lot more benign than the delta variant was back in August.”
Both health systems said their demand increased over the past two weeks, spiking significantly from the week before Christmas, when COVID numbers began to tick up slightly.
“We’ve got a lot of patients that are showing up at our walk-in clinics, wanting testing and presenting with respiratory symptoms,” Walker said. “It seems like this wave is ramping up faster than delta did.”
Memorial sees highest positivity rates in months
On Monday, Walker said Memorial tested about 500 patients, with 200 coming back positive for COVID.
Around mid-December, the health system was seeing an average of 10 positives a day across 33 testing locations.
“We’ve gone from seeing maybe a 2% positivity rate to somewhere closer to a 40% positivity rate,” Walker said. “I think we had about our second highest positive rate in the last eight months yesterday. And I don’t know what tomorrow is going to bring.”
The testing demand is resource intensive, Walker said, so Memorial on Monday closed its walk-in vaccination clinics in Biloxi and Bay St. Louis so that staff could be moved to other locations.
“We were kind of seeing a downtick in vaccinations. So if the community is leading us to focus more on testing than vaccines, we’ll reallocate resources to focus on testing to get that under control for a week or two.”
Memorial Hospital is currently offering COVID rapid testing, which provides results in minutes. Memorial also offers COVID tests at their clinics.
Memorial Physician Clinics Family Practice at Tradition
19289-A Saint Joseph St
Biloxi, MS 39532
Memorial Physician Clinics Courthouse Road Walk-In Clinic
370 Courthouse Road, Suite 103
Gulfport, MS 39507
Memorial Physician Clinics - The Crossings at Vidalia
27368 J.P. Ladner Road, Suite 3
Pass Christian, MS 39571
Memorial Physician Clinics Diamondhead Family Medicine and Walk-In Clinic
4300 Leisure Time Drive
Diamondhead, MS 39525
Memorial Physician Clinics Promenade Family Practice
3920 Promenade Parkway, Suite A
D’Iberville, MS 39540
Memorial Physician Clinics - Gautier Walk-In Clinic
6510 Hwy 90
Gautier , MS 39553
Memorial Physician Clinics Beatline Medical & Walk-In
5120 Beatline Road, Suite B
Long Beach, MS 39560
Memorial Physician Clinics Magnolia Grove Walk-In Clinic
4333 15th Street
Gulfport, MS 39501
Memorial Physician Clinics Family Medicine and Walk-in - Ocean Springs
3434 Bienville Boulevard
Ocean Springs, MS 39564
Memorial Physician Clinics Pascagoula Walk-In Clinic
4603 Hospital Road
Pascagoula, MS 39581-5337
Memorial Stone County Medical Center
1440 E Central Avenue
Wiggins, MS 39577
Singing River testing demand
From Dec. 25 until Jan. 4, Singing River tested 3,800 people for the coronavirus, a spokesperson said. A thousand of the tests came back positive for COVID. Just yesterday, 452 tests came back positive. Before the 25th, the health system was averaging about 120 positives per day.
The seven-day average for testing since Christmas has been 412 tests per day. The week before, the health system was performing about 208 daily.
Hospitalizations are remaining stable, however, with a slight increase.
On Jan. 4 Singing River had 18 hospitalized with two on a ventilator. On Christmas the health system had 10 patients and on Dec. 21 they were down to six patients.
With an increased testing demand, Singing River on Thursday is reopening two drive-thru testing sites. Open 8 a.m. until 3 p.m, the Gulfport and Ocean Springs testing locations will only offer PCR tests and join the health system’s other options for testing at clinics.
All Singing River Medical Clinic locations offer PCR testing, but rapid resting is only available at Cedar Lake, Hurley, Ocean Springs, Pascagoula and Vancleave.
- Singing River Medical Clinic – Hurley
- Singing River Medical Clinic – Ocean Springs
- Singing River Medical Clinic – Pascagoula
- Singing River Medical Clinic-- Vancleave
This article is supported by the Journalism and Public Information Fund, a fund of the Gulf Coast Community Foundation.
This story was originally published January 5, 2022 at 3:21 PM.
