Covid hospitalizations down, recovery following hospital stay can be ‘horrific’

BOWLING GREEN, Ky. (WBKO) - The nation is seeing a decline in Covid-19 hospitalizations which is a trend local hospitals are also reporting.

“We definitely welcome the trend, it is nice to have fewer COVID patients,” said Dr. Karan Singh, Associate Director of Pulmonology at Western Kentucky Heart And Lung.

Med Center Health reports that they currently have 25 Covid patients, with 72 percent of them unvaccinated. That’s down by nearly 60 percent from two weeks ago when the hospital had 62 patients.

“It is being driven primarily by the fact that we have fewer new COVID cases,” explained Singh. “This is exactly what happened with other countries that had the Delta variant as well. I think India is a good example of that, where there was a very fast uptick, and then the decline also was fairly rapid. So we’re all cautiously optimistic this will follow the same trend. But if COVID has proven anything, it’s that predictions are not very correct.”

While fewer cases and hospitalizations are a positive sign, it doesn’t mean health care workers are in the clear.

“We’re still much busier than what we were in pre-Covid days. Typically, we would usually only have one attending physician covering the ICU pre-Covid now we have to because there’s just that many patients and they’re that much sicker,” explained Singh.

Singh works directly with Covid ICU patients and explains that while some have left the hospital, others are still there, but no longer struggle with just Covid, and therefore, are taken out of that Covid number.

“There are also people who are still very sick, who are still in the hospital but they have passed a window of infectivity, so they no longer on isolation precautions,” said Singh. “While they might still be in the hospital, and they still might be sick, they are no longer considered Covid patients.”

Singh says while the survival rate with Covid is high, individuals who have been in the hospital with the virus still endure quite a bit emotionally and physically following that survival.

“The ICU stay-- what that does to a person is truly horrific. At best, you’re going to leave them with severe PTSD. At worst, you’re going to have severe physical deficits that will hamper you perhaps for the rest of your life.”

There are currently 18 Covid patients at T.J. Samson Regional Health in Glasgow and only two are vaccinated. This rate is down by 13 patients from two weeks ago.

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