CVPH "very concerned" with COVID spike

PLATTSBURGH | As of Jan. 5, University of Vermont Health Network/Champlain Valley Physicians Hospital (CVPH) had 17 patients being treated for Coronavirus COVID-19, with three in the ICU. These are the highest numbers Dr. Wouter Rietsema and the staff of CVPH have seen during the pandemic, and he fears they will only be getting worse. "When you see the numbers in the North Country going up and up and up, the hospitalization numbers lag for at least two weeks," said Rietsema, an infectious disease expert and vice president of population health and information services at the hospital. "It's very concerning." Holiday surge to blame Rietsema did not hesitate to point out the increase in cases being directly tied to the holiday season. "The surge began a couple of weeks after Thanksgiving," he said. "It really started smoldering in October and then it started to slowly go up until Thanksgiving when it started to spike." Rietsema said asymptomatic testing throughout the state has shown entire families contracting the disease, something he said had been seen seldom before now. "I'm seeing whole families now and that started two weeks after Thanksgiving and that has jumped since Christmas," he said. "It's people not appreciating the severity or not appreciating the fact that just because I know what I do to stay protected, I do not know what my other family members do to take care of themselves. "These are things that were predicted, these were things we guarded against — but these were things that people didn't listen to, and it's disappointing." With increased caseloads, Rietsema said staff would need to be taken from other areas of the hospital in order to deal with a rise in COVID patients, which would hurt other facets of the hospital's functions. "There's no cavalry coming and there is no one waiting in the wings," he said. "We are worried and everybody should be worried." The U.K. variant When asked during a Jan. 5 press conference if he felt the United Kingdom variant of the virus would spread into the North Country, Rietsema responded, "I assume it is here, frankly. When people are looking for it, they find it," he added.

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CVPH "very concerned" with COVID spike

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