South Florida Hospitals Coping With Fast-Spreading Omicron

South Florida hospitals are coping with a rise in COVID-19 cases due to the omicron variant, which officials said is quickly spreading.

Dr. Marc Napp with Memorial Healthcare System used a color-coded chart to characterize this past weekend's rise in cases.

"We got to green for a day, and that was about three weeks ago, we had been in yellow for the next two weeks, we went from yellow to red without going to orange over this past weekend, so the numbers have increased significantly in the community," Napp said Monday.

Dr. Hany Atallah with Jackson Health System said he's seeming a similar spike.

"What we look at is how quickly numbers tend to double and so we’re seeing that rather than the peak going more gradual we are seeing that peak rise much more quickly," Atallah said.

But, Atallah said hospitalizations are way down compared to the peak of the Delta variant this past summer.

"We are still seeing a rise in our hospitalizations, not quite to the same degree that we did with Delta, especially as it relates to the ICU patients," Atallah said.

As a result, hospitals in South Florida are not being overwhelmed.

As of Monday, there were 98 Covid patients at Jackson Health System, compared to the peak of the Delta variant when 445 people were hospitalized.

In Broward, Memorial Healthcare System was treating 89 Covid patients, compared to their peak of about 740 patients.

Per Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava’s emergency order, the county’s hospitals are now reporting daily Covid statistics, from deaths, to therapeutic treatments, to the numbers of people vaccinated.

It’s a reboot of the reporting, which halted during the summer because the Delta variant numbers dropped significantly. But that’s over with the rapid spread of omicron.

Because omicron comes with less severe symptoms hospital executives aren’t necessarily concerned with a crush of patients being admitted around the same time, rather the potential for hospital workers, exposed to Covid, getting sick and not able to come to work.