Thread by @LaurenWeberHP

Workers out sick in droves.

Patients' conditions being exacerbated by Omicron.

Add the threat of in-hospital transmission.

There’s a reason hospitals are telling people to stay away from the ER - @jeremyfaust

W/ @philgalewitz @gahealthnews @KHNews
khn.org/news/article/i…

Regardless of whether patients are admitted for or with covid, the patients still tax the hospital’s ability to operate, said Dr. Alex Garza, head of the St. Louis Metropolitan Pandemic Task Force.

He also warned exposure risk in the ER is high: “It’s physics and math."

Incidental cases also pose a greater risk to staffers and other hospital patients because they are typically at a more contagious stage of the disease — before symptoms begin: @jeremyfaust

Before this wave, folks were hospitalized in the middle and later phases of the illness

As @MJainMD pointed out, "People in the hospital are vulnerable for many reasons," so being exposed to Omicron could be very dangerous for them.

“All of their existing underlying illnesses with multiple medical conditions — all of that puts them at much greater risk.”

In @jeremyfaust analysis of federal data, Jan. 7 showed the second-highest number of “hospital onset” covid cases since the pandemic began.

This data accounts for only people who were in the hospital for 14 days before testing positive for covid, so it’s likely an undercount.

In @By_CJewett and my investigations last year, we revealed multiple gaps in government oversight in holding hospitals accountable for high rates of covid patients who didn’t have the diagnosis when they were admitted.

khn.org/news/article/a…

Federal reporting systems don’t publicly note covid caught in individual hospitals -- they just do the limited state-level snapshots that @jeremyfaust referenced. It can't be added for totals.

But @By_CJewett found Medicare data from 2020 that details:

khn.org/news/article/h…

And if you do get covid while in the hospital, you won't have much recourse.

A wave of liability shield lawsuits, pushed by corporate groups like @ALEC_states and others, makes it nearly impossible to force infection control improvements, we found.

khn.org/news/article/l…

So the doctors I spoke to said to do the following if you must be hospitalized:

Wear the highest quality mask (KN95 or N95) you can tolerate. If you can't wear it all day, put it on when you see other people -- like when you're wheeled around the hospital or see your nurses.

.@AbraarKaran believes all health care workers should be mandated to wear N95s for every patient interaction, considering the rise in covid-exposure risk.

In the absence of higher-quality mask mandates for staffers, he recommended that patients ask that their providers wear N95s

“Why should we be putting the onus on patients to protect themselves from health care workers when health care workers are not even going to be doing that?” @AbraarKaran said.

“It’s so backwards.”

Some hospital workers may not know they are getting sick — and infectious.

And even if they do know, in some states, including Rhode Island and California, health care workers who are asymptomatic can be called back to work because of staffing shortages.

That's why some would love to see more regular testing of health care workers to prevent possible spread.

But @MJainMD said hospitals often resist.

“Hospitals don’t want to know,” he said. “We just don’t have the staff.”

khn.org/news/article/i…