An omicron-fueled COVID-19 surge due to hit North Texas could spell trouble for an exhausted health care system and for non-coronavirus patients looking for hospital beds and doctor’s appointments in coming weeks, public health experts warn.
As seen in previous surges, more coronavirus-designated beds mean fewer options for patients coming to hospitals with other medical issues — and patients who defer care this year may end up sicker next year.
Finding care when emergency departments are inundated with COVID-19 patients is an extra burden for patients who urgently need treatment, said Erin Carlson, associate clinical professor and director of graduate public health programs at the University of Texas at Arlington.
“You have people waiting a very long time in the emergency department to get seen and who then might get turned away because we just don’t have any beds,” she said. “So they go to the next emergency department. And they wait for hours to be seen and they get turned away because there’s no beds.”
The full scope of the pandemic’s impact on overall health likely won’t be seen until regular doctor’s visits — that are not coronavirus-related — can resume uninterrupted, said Dr. John Carlo, CEO of Prism Health North Texas.
“We really need to start looking at things beyond COVID,” he said. “I think that the overall effect of having to go through this again is probably not going to be appreciated for some time.”
Omicron has spread to nearly 90 countries, the World Health Organization said, with lockdowns ordered in several European nations. Omicron is now the dominant version of the coronavirus in the U.S., accounting for 73% of new infections last week, federal health officials said.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention numbers showed nearly a six-fold increase in omicron’s share of infections in only one week, The Associated Press reported. In much of the country, omicron’s prevalence is even higher. It’s responsible for an estimated 90% of new infections in the New York area, the Southeast, the industrial Midwest and the Pacific Northwest.
In North Texas, if hospitals fill up with COVID-19 patients as they did in previous surges, patients may struggle to find available hospital beds.
Hospitalizations of confirmed COVID-19 patients account for 5.54% of total hospital capacity in the Dallas-Fort Worth trauma service area, according to the Texas Department of State Health Services. During the delta wave in September, COVID-19 hospitalizations accounted for more than 20% of total hospital capacity.
Some non-coronavirus patients may even elect not to seek medical care out of fear of contracting the omicron variant or out of frustration with long wait times.
“We don’t want people to be fearful to come to the hospital,” said Steve Love, president and CEO of the Dallas-Fort Worth Hospital Council. “We experienced that back in June, July and August of 2020. People were afraid to call 911 when they had chest pains.”
Putting off critical medical care can make patients with chronic conditions like heart disease even sicker by the time they come to the hospital or doctor’s office, said Dr. Amy Wilson, chief medical officer at Baylor University Medical Center.
“What we’re seeing is patients that are sicker in general, their medical issues are more severe,” Wilson said.
Rising hospitalization rates in D-FW
Hospitalizations in D-FW have increased in the last two weeks after nearly a month of decreasing or stagnant hospitalization rates, according to data analysis by UT Southwestern Medical Center released Dec. 15.
In Dallas County, hospitalizations have increased by 6% over the two weeks leading up to Dec. 13. In Tarrant County, hospitalizations have increased 13% in that same time period.
UT Southwestern predicts Dallas County’s total COVID-19 hospitalizations will reach 350 concurrent hospitalized cases by Jan. 3. That would be a more-than 35% increase from the most recent data released by Dallas County on Friday, which put total COVID-19 hospitalizations at 227.
Tarrant County’s total hospitalizations are projected to reach 360 concurrent hospitalized cases by Jan. 3, a nearly 34% increase from the 228 COVID-19 hospitalizations reported by the county on Monday.
While these increases of a few hundred patients may not seem like many, North Texas hospitals are reporting that they’re already full, even without a COVID-19 spike.
Local hospitals prepare for the COVID-19 surge
Parkland is always full, making it impossible for the hospital to preemptively clear floors and prepare COVID-19 beds, said Dr. Joseph Chang, chief medical officer at Parkland Health & Hospital System.
“We literally need all our beds, every single day. If it’s not for COVID, it’s for something else,” he said. “So there’s really not much else for us to do except wait and see.”
The hospital is as prepared for a coronavirus surge as it can be, after dealing with previous waves of the virus, Chang said. During previous surges, rearranging wards for COVID-19 patients could take up to a week. Now that can be done in less than 24 hours.
Baylor University Medical Center staff is also watching the state of COVID-19 cases while operating already busy care programs through the hospital, Wilson said.
“Although we are relatively quiet with COVID right now, the hospital is very, very busy,” she said. “It seems like we’re all just holding our breath with the expectation that we’re going to get inundated again.”
One of the biggest concerns for health care leaders staring down another COVID-19 surge is the mental and physical well-being of their staffs. Health care workers are burned out after nearly two years of the COVID-19 pandemic, and many are electing to leave the field altogether.
Staffing shortages at hospitals leave little room for something to go wrong — something like an outbreak of the omicron variant among hospital workers.
A majority of hospital systems in North Texas have vaccine mandates and high staff vaccination rates. But the omicron’s high transmissibility is cause for concern, Wilson said.
“It’s essential that our workforce stay healthy so that we can continue caring for the community, regardless of whether they have COVID or some other critical medical issue that needs our help,” she said.
