“It may be that the (pediatric) hospitals get a break and the adult hospitals are in for some strain,” said Beth Carlton, an associate professor of environmental and occupational health at the Colorado School of Public Health.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration lists 125 items with medical shortages, ranging from an asthma drug to vials of sterile water at certain sizes. The ones that affect the most people are shortages of Adderall, which treats attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and the antibiotic amoxicillin, said Dr. Kelsey Schwander, a clinical pharmacist at the University of Colorado Anschutz medical campus.
While it’s nowhere near the level reached in mid-January, when 1,676 people were hospitalized with COVID-19 during the omicron surge, the concern is that there’s less capacity in the health care system to absorb an influx of patients, said Beth Carlton, an associate professor of environmental and occupational health at the Colorado School of Public Health.
In late October, the COVID-19 Scenario Modeling Hub released projections that the country could have a wave that’s similar to what it saw over the summer, said Beth Carlton, an associate professor of environmental and occupational health at the Colorado School of Public Health. But hospitalizations are already where they were during the summer peak, and the cases and positivity rate suggest infections aren’t slowing down yet, she said.
Now, though, it’s not clear how much warning Colorado would have if another wave were building, Beth Carlton, an associate professor of environmental and occupational health at the Colorado School of Public Health, said last week, when hospitalizations were still plateaued. Those who study the data need to figure out how to develop a clear picture so people know when they need to take more precautions and when they can relax a bit, she said. “We need to really be thinking strategically about what are the key data,” she said. “I think that this is the question that is most important to be asking right now.”
Given that cases and the percentage of tests coming back positive have been trending up over the last two weeks, it appears that the rise in hospitalizations points to a real increase in infections, said Dr. Jon Samet, dean of the Colorado School of Public Health.
As of Tuesday, the state’s wastewater dashboard showed virus concentrations were rising in 23 areas, falling in 12 and flat in 21. The increases were relatively small, however, and could reflect fluctuations from sampling, said Talia Quandelacy, an assistant professor of epidemiology at the Colorado School of Public Health. “I think it’s a little bit early to say definitively,” she said.
Cases increased by 260 to 4,290, which is roughly where they were two weeks ago. The percentage of tests coming back positive also increased to 6.2%, from about 5.1% a week earlier — a fluctuation that’s probably not significant, said Beth Carlton, an associate professor of environmental and occupational health at the Colorado School of Public Health.
