DCH Coronavirus Update 8-27-21

Update Aug. 27, 2021

DCH Pandemic Timeline

The following story was shared with DCH employees today. While it was written for them, we felt it would be good to share with the public as well.

When you get hyper-focused, it’s amazing what you can achieve. That’s what happened across DCH when COVID-19 became a reality. Here’s a timeline of key COVID-19 pandemic events at DCH. It does not include things like when community members started providing meals, masks and face shields. It does not include the first time a COVID-19 ICU patient recovered enough to be discharged home. And it doesn’t list the million and one heroic, and often unseen, acts of dignity and compassion that you have rendered over the last year and a half. If it did include even a small portion of those items, it would likely go on for hundreds of pages.

Despite this list not being comprehensive, it is still stunning. Take a moment to look it over. The partnership with the community and what all of you have sacrificed and accomplished (and continue to accomplish) for this community are humbling and awe inspiring.

Thank you for all you have done and continue to do; you are appreciated.

Timeline of COVID-19 Events at the DCH Health System

• Jan. 29, 2020 Alerted staff to the spread of COVID-19 in China; preparations began
• March 12, 2020 Initiated a daily public, staff and medical staff COVID-19 update
• March 13, 2020 Received ADPH confirmation of the first known case of COVID-19 in AL
• March 16, 2020 Established temporary drive-through COVID-19 testing site
• March 18, 2020 Initiated limited visitation
• March 23, 2020 Suspended elective procedures (temporarily)
• March 25, 2020 Identified first eight COVID-19 positive test results through DCH testing
• March 25, 2020 Admitted first COVID-19 positive patient to a DCH hospital
• April 15, 2020 Added a dashboard to the daily update
• May 28, 2020 Peaked at 87 total inpatients in the first COVID-19 surge at DCH
• July 30, 2020 Peaked at 110 total inpatients in the second COVID-19 surge at DCH
• Dec. 4, 2020 Introduced a new, semipermanent drive-through vaccine building
• Dec. 11, 2020 Began offering monoclonal antibody infusion
• Dec. 17, 2020 Started administering the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine
• Jan. 19, 2021 Peaked at 199 total inpatients in the third COVID-19 surge at DCH
• Feb. 1, 2021 Stopped COVID-19 testing at remote site; vaccinations only
• Feb. 6, 2021 Offered an educator only vaccination weekend
• Feb. 8, 2021 Began 1,000 vaccines per day as an ADPH mass vaccination site
• July 29, 2021 Surpassed 100,000 COVID-19 tests administered
• Aug. 20, 2021 Began offering Pfizer vaccine third dose
• Aug. 25, 2021 Surpassed 70,000 doses of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine administered
• Aug. 27, 2021 Peaked (so far) at 163 total inpatients in the fourth DCH COVID-19 surge

COVID-19 Information

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 1:19 p.m. on 8/27/21:

• 163 inpatients within the DCH system who are positive for COVID-19.
• 34 inpatients who are positive for COVID-19 are being treated in the ICU.
• 25 inpatients who are positive for COVID-19 are on ventilators.
• 25 inpatients who are positive for COVID-19 are on BiPAP.
• 10,159 (cumulative) unique positives for COVID-19 tests including results from the ED, triage tent and inpatient. These individuals are not necessarily in the hospital.
• 48,356 (cumulative) unique negatives for COVID-19 at DCH sites.
• 12,420 (cumulative) positive COVID-19 at DCH sites. These individuals are not necessarily in the hospital.
• 96,973 (cumulative) negative tests at DCH sites.
• 3,538 inpatients (cumulative) who were positive for COVID-19 have been discharged.
• 610 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.