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MIAMI (WSVN) - The Chief Medical Officer of South Miami Hospital says she has seen an increase in patients being admitted with coronavirus at her hospital.
Amid the increased number of patients and cases each day, President Donald Trump remains hopeful when it comes to the U.S.’s future regarding the pandemic.
“I think you’ll see with all of things we are doing and with all of therapeutics coming out and ultimately the vaccine, we are going to be in very good shape very soon,” Trump said.
Dr. Yvonne Johnson, the CMO and a emergency medicine physician at South Miami Hospital, said “soon” is a relative term.
“In terms of how this virus can affect us as individuals, ‘soon’ means ‘in the next few days to the next few weeks,’ and I have no expectation we will have a vaccine or a miracle cure in those next few weeks,” Johnson said.
Johnson believes a best case scenario for a vaccine would be early 2021, but in the meantime, she said it is important to keep the case count down.
Vice President Mike Pence hinted at keeping the case count down during a recent press conference.
“We are beginning to see early indications that positivity is flattening, and in Arizona and Florida, we are beginning to see declining numbers of emergency room visits, as well,” Pence said.
While that may be true in other parts of the state, Johnson said that is not the case at South Miami Hospital.
“We are stressing our health care system,” Johnson said. “We are having to employ our surge plans to address it. We’re having to cancel elective surgeries, surgeries that, in some cases, people were waiting for weeks to have, and we still have to take care of patients with strokes, heart attacks and broken hips.”
Johnson also asked the public to adhere to the guidelines, such as wearing masks, practicing social distancing and washing hands often.
“We need our community to be responsive to the needs of our health care system here locally,” Johnson said.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis stressed that younger people need to adhere more to the guidelines.
“That 20- to 30-year-old cohort, you’re seeing more infections in that age group,” DeSantis said. “There probably were already always happening to a certain extent, but I think the transmission rate has increased over the last month.”
Johnson added to the governor’s comments, saying her hospital is seeing a greater number of young people being hospitalized than a couple months ago.
“They are not immune from this,” Johnson said. “They can get it, and not only can they can get it, but they can be sick enough to need to be hospitalized, so they need to take care.”
More hospitalizations means more beds are used, which puts a strain on hospital staff and availability.
“We are probably close to our capacity for what is our normal designated beds for our ICUs and our COVID units,” Johnson said.
Johnson said South Miami Hospital and others have surge plans to address the increased number of patients.
The hospital is rolling the plans out, and it is up to people to do their part to not overwhelm the system.
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