DCH Coronavirus Update 2-7-22

Update Feb. 7, 2022

COVID-19 Remote Vaccination Site to Close

Friday, Feb. 25, will be the final day for DCH’s remote vaccination site.

The site, which first opened for COVID-19 testing on March 16, 2020, has been in continual operation for nearly two years. In that time, over 100,000 COVID-19 tests were administered and nearly 73,000 COVID-19 vaccines provided.

While only about 43 percent of Tuscaloosa County residents are fully vaccinated* (according to the Alabama Department of Public Health), the demand for vaccines at the DCH remote site has continued to decline. This Friday only 30 appointments are currently scheduled, and only about a dozen are scheduled between Feb. 18 and 25. This decline makes it very difficult to continue to justify maintaining the location, especially when vaccines are readily available at many other locations such as pharmacies.

If you would still like to receive a vaccine, appointments are available at DCH from 7 to 10:50 a.m. every Friday for the remainder of this month. To register for a vaccination, visit https://www.dchsystem.com/covidvaccine/.

To all those who have supported the ongoing testing and vaccination effort at the DCH remote site for the last two years, thank you. Whether you are DCH employees, physicians, paramedics, police, firefighters, elected officials and many, many more, we are grateful to you for your dedication and service to our community through this effort.

*A person is considered fully vaccinated two weeks after completion of a two-dose mRNA series or one dose of a Johnson and Johnson vaccine.

COVID Update

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 2:52 p.m. on 2/7/22:

• 114 inpatients within the DCH system who are positive for COVID-19.
• 23 inpatients who are positive for COVID-19 are being treated in the ICU.
• 11 inpatients who are positive for COVID-19 are on ventilators.
• 14,492 (cumulative) unique positives for COVID-19 tests including results from the ED, triage tent and inpatient. These individuals are not necessarily in the hospital.
• 56,624 (cumulative) unique negatives for COVID-19 at DCH sites.
• 17,709 (cumulative) positive COVID-19 at DCH sites. These individuals are not necessarily in the hospital.
• 126,180 (cumulative) negative tests at DCH sites.
• 4,827 inpatients (cumulative) who were positive for COVID-19 have been discharged.
• 836 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.