The light at the end of the tunnel may not be that bright, but at least there is a light, according to Amy Garner – West Tennessee Healthcare system vice president chief compliance & communications officer.
“I think … finally, after several weeks, of giving you bad news, I think I finally have a little light at the end of the tunnel to share,” Garner said, “We have 522 patients at Jackson-Madison County General Hospital (today), but our COVID positive patient numbers are down this week.
“We are down to 103 patients with about 30 of the patients being in an ICU bed (today). We have 22 of those patients on a ventilator because of their active COVID diagnosis.”
Garner made her comments during a weekly media briefing with local health, government and school officials.
“We have another 23 that are on a ventilator no longer considered infectious,” Garner said, “So, the majority of our ventilator patients are related to COVID, and we have a total of 72 ventilators running, but the good news is our numbers are going down as far as our COVID positive patients.”
Garner said of the COVID patients on a ventilator, only one of the patients has been vaccinated.
“We supply those numbers … the vaccine does not necessarily prevent you from getting COVID, but it is very clear in the data … it does keep you from being seriously ill or hospitalized or possibly requiring ventilator support.”
Kim Tedford, the regional health director of the Jackson-Madison County Regional Health Department also added some good – but cautious – news.
“I’ve got some good news, I think,” Tedford said, “We’ve seen a plateauing of the new case numbers since Saturday.”
Tedford said there has been an increase of 74 new cases overnight, since the Health Department issued its most recent numbers Tuesday.
“I think Friday, we had an increase of around 113 new cases – those decreased drastically over the weekend (and) on into the week so our seven day average over the last seven days is about 70 new cases a day,” Tedford said, “Last Wednesday when we did out briefing we were sitting at an average of about 97 cases … happy to see that and hoping to see a plateau.”
Tedford said the number of vaccinations in Madison County stood at at 61.99 percent – 51.33 of the population who have completed their series.
(PHOTO: Amy Garner)
