Federal Help Arrives as Alabama Struggles With COVID

Montgomery Advertiser

A federal team of health care workers is deploying to a south Alabama hospital amid an ongoing "crush" of COVID-19 patients threatening to overwhelm the state's health system.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services will send a 13-person team to South Baldwin Regional Medical Center in Foley, Ala. The director of the team is on the ground in Foley today, and additional members will travel to the state over the weekend. Gulf Coast counties have seen a particularly critical COVID-19 surge, with hospitals in the area holding more critical patients than they have available ICU beds.

"We don't know how long we'll be able to maintain our health care capacity," Alabama State Health Officer Dr. Scott Harris said at a Friday briefing. "...That's really tenuous right now. We are pulling every lever and pushing every button and using every resource we have to try to do that. At some point, there is physically not enough room to take care of all the people in Alabama we might see if we don't get enough people vaccinated."

Alabama has seen COVID-19 deaths increase in the state this week and ICU capacity bottom out, with hospitals reporting several days of net negative ICU bed numbers.

Harris said work is ongoing to bring additional federal resources to the state. Alabama has assessed at least eight hospitals for disaster medical assistance through the Federal Emergency Management Agency, requesting up to 200 ICU nurses in addition to a number of doctors and other specialties such as paramedics.

Alabama hospitals reported 289 COVID-19 patient deaths in the past seven days. Harris said all reported deaths will await official confirmation through death investigations, which can take several weeks in Alabama.

But the state has likely now passed the 12,000 COVID death mark, a "grim milestone" that is increasingly frustrating for health officials as the majority of new deaths are occurring in unvaccinated individuals.

"These people did not have to die," Harris said. "These people did not have to be in the hospital. Vaccination would have prevented most of that. That's extraordinarily frustrating for us, and incredibly sad for the loved ones of those no longer with us."

Vaccinations across the state have risen in recent weeks, which Harris said was an encouraging sign. In Alabama, 2.2 million have received at least one vaccine dose and 1.7 million have completed their vaccine series since the shots became available.

"There's a lot of people out there who can still be moved," Harris said of Alabamians who are now seeking vaccinations. "These weren't hardcore, never-going-to-get-vaccinated people. Sometimes there is just inertia that has to be overcome, until you're motivated to get out and do something."

Still, the health care situation remains dire throughout the state. As COVID-19 hospitalizations pile on to everyday patient loads, the crush is trickling down to emergency room wait times, paramedic response and ambulance availability.

Doctors around the state are urging Alabamians to mask up indoors and seek out the vaccine if they haven't already.

"It is a race against time," Harris said of slowing the spread of the delta variant to preserve the hospital system. "The people who get vaccinated today, Alabama is really not going to see the benefit of that for 6 or 7 weeks. We really need people to hurry up. The hospitals are underwater right now. Any person who becomes infected could create the next variant that is much more deadly. It's really an urgent situation. We do not have any time to waste."