DCH Coronavirus Update 12-30-20

Frontline Workers Share Vaccine Thoughts

Currently we are still in phase 1a of the Alabama Department of Public Health COVID-19 vaccination plan, which can be viewed here: https://www.alabamapublichealth.gov/covid19/assets/adph-covid19-vaccination-allocation-plan.pdf.

Phase 1a is primarily for frontline health workers (inpatient and outpatient) and some first responders. While we don’t yet know the timing for the next phases, it is important to collect information and make an educated decision so you will be prepared when the vaccine is made available to you.

DCH employees and physicians agreed to share their thoughts on why they chose to receive the vaccine. Over the next few days, we will post short videos of those comments. The first video can be found at the link below.

https://youtu.be/E4HbwmufMV8

Remote Site Testing and Vaccination Holiday Hours

DCH’s COVID-19 screening and testing and vaccination service at its remote site in the Laundry Lot just west of DCH Regional Medical Center will be closed this Friday (Jan. 1) for New Year’s. Next week the site will be back to its regular hours, Monday, Wednesday and Friday, 8 a.m.–noon for testing and Monday through Friday, by appointment, for vaccinations.

Testing and Confirmed Cases

To protect patient privacy, DCH has established a minimum threshold of five for reporting numbers of inpatients with laboratory-confirmed cases of COVID-19.

DCH Health System internal counts as of 2:46 p.m. on 12/30/20:

• 154 inpatients within the DCH system who are positive for COVID-19.
• 38 inpatients who are positive for COVID-19 are being treated in the ICU.
• 18 who are positive for COVID-19 are on ventilators.
• 14 who are positive for COVID-19 are on a BiPAP.
• 6,716 (cumulative) unique positives for COVID-19 tests including results from the ED, triage tent and inpatient. These individuals are not necessarily in the hospital.
• 32,686 (cumulative) unique negatives for COVID-19 at DCH sites.
• 8,118 (cumulative) positive COVID-19 at DCH sites. These individuals are not necessarily in the hospital.
• 56,273 (cumulative) negative tests at DCH sites.
• 2,020 inpatients (cumulative) who were positive for COVID-19 have been discharged.
• 350 inpatients (cumulative) who were positive for COVID-19 have died at DCH. This is not an indication of the cause of death, only that the individuals were positive for COVID-19 at the time of death.
• 155 Tuscaloosa County residents (cumulative) who were positive for COVID-19 have died (per the Alabama Department of Public Health).