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U.S. Navy deploys medical team to support Alabama hospital in COVID-19 hotspot

Montgomery Advertiser - 9/8/2021

A 20-person U.S. Navy medical unit will soon be caring for Alabama patients in a Dale County hospital as an ongoing crush of COVID-19 hospitalizations continues to threaten hospital resources around the state.

The federal team will be stationed in Ozark at Dale Medical Center, Alabama State Health Officer Dr. Scott Harris said Wednesday. The Navy team, based out of Texas, is the third federal unit to temporarily deploy to Alabama hospitals.

Military personnel began arriving in Ozark early this week, spending a few days shadowing hospital staff before beginning patient care in the Dale County facility. A U.S. Northern Command spokesperson confirmed the Navy unit will include doctors, nurses and respiratory therapists, with a three-person administrative unit attached as well.

Dale Medical Center was unable to comment but plans to hold a media briefing Thursday on further details on the unit. The Department of Defense has deployed military medical units to other COVID-19 hotspots at the request of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

At least 2,776 people were hospitalized in Alabama on Tuesday with COVID-19. The rise in hospitalizations spiked rapidly in July as the highly contagious delta variant spread quickly in Alabama, one of the least vaccinated states in the country.

Officials, eyeing the unprecedented rate hospitalizations were rising at through July, feared a crush of COVID-19 patients would soon breach the state's previous winter hospital peak. Data indicates the hospitalization increase has slowed, a welcoming sign during a punishing surge, but inpatient numbers are still very high and are holding, wearing down hospital staff and resources already taxed to their limit.

"We are not increasing, so that's certainly a good thing," Harris said. "I am hopeful we have reached a plateau that will occur before we see a decrease. It's difficult to say. We've had plateaus before where we suddenly sprung up again. It's hard to know for certain. Hopefully, we're headed the right way.

There are still not enough ICU beds in the state compared to the number of critical patients. The state reported capacity for 1,523 ICU beds on Tuesday, with 1,582 critical patients across the state. COVID-19 patients accounted for 51% of all ICU patients in the state.

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AHA reports 84% of Alabama's current COVID-19 patients are unvaccinated, and Harris said anecdotal data out of state hospitals shows the limited vaccinated, "breakthrough" cases are occurring in older or immunocompromised people who were at higher risk for developing severe illness.

"Most of this hospital crunch is because we have people who are eligible to vaccinated who still aren't vaccinated," said Harris. Even though we're unfortunately seeing some breakthrough cases again, overwhelming the people who are dying are unvaccinated. If we just had people vaccinated who are eligible, we would not be in this boat."

The summer surge slammed south Alabama first in July, with patient crushes in Mobile, Baldwin and Dothan area hospitals contributing to rapidly diminishing ICU capacity around the state through late summer. Patient numbers have declined in south Alabama from summer peaks, but continue to rise elsewhere.

On Saturday, the East Alabama Medical Center record all-time pandemic highs in both hospitalizations and ventilator usage, with 93 COVID-19 patients and 23 ventilators in use.

"At one point on Saturday, we actually had 94 COVID patients hospitalized and had several more waiting in the Emergency Department for a bed to become available," EAMC spokesperson John Atkinson said. "In the past couple of weeks, we've had some patients—both COVID and non-COVID—have to wait 24 hours or more in the ER before being able to be placed in a bed on a nursing unit. It's a pretty surreal situation at this point with little reason to believe it will get better in the immediate future."

Deaths have also increased in recent weeks, with 503 COVID-19 patient deaths reported between Aug. 29 and Sept. 7 in Alabama, per hospital data. The Alabama Department of Public Health will investigate the deaths before officially confirming them as COVID-19 related, but the double-digit death numbers per day are wearing on health care staff, officials say.

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On Tuesday, hospitals around the state participated in a moment of silence to honor the more than 12,000 lives lost since the beginning of the pandemic. EAMC President Laura Grill said in a statement that more than 30 of the 273 COVID deaths at EAMC have happened since Aug. 1 alone.

"Many of these recent lives lost could have been prevented by simply being vaccinated," she said. "It's extremely unsettling that we still have so many people who are willing to risk their very lives rather than to accept a free vaccine that basically assures them of a less-severe illness from the virus. It's especially hard for our employees and physicians to continually hear the voices of regret from patients and families when they know they must face the reality of a possible death."

Contact Montgomery Advertiser reporter Melissa Brown at 334-240-0132 or mabrown@gannett.com.

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