HEALTH
FACING DOWN DEATH
Medical staff in the Cleveland Clinic attend to ICU patients in late August. Even though breakthrough infections are possible following a vaccination, experts
say those patients rarely need the ICU or require ventilators.
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CLEVELAND CLINIC
Treasure Coast medical personnel deal
with pandemic as cases surge
BY ELLEN GILLETTE
Along the Treasure Coast, new COVID-19
cases were reasonably low in the spring.
More people were eligible for vaccinations.
Schools had reopened on time in the fall
and by then were looking forward to summer break.
Travel plans, even cruises, were back in the picture.
And then the numbers took a dramatic turn.
Beginning in late May into June, a surge in cases
still has hospitals and doctors’ offices scrambling.
Due to the delta variant — more infectious than the
2020 strain — the increase from week to week has
sometimes been as much as 20%. Misinformation and
resistance on the part of many to get vaccinated have
also been contributing factors.
“There will be a day when we don’t walk by each
other and ask, ‘Are you vaccinated? Why aren’t you
wearing a mask?’ That day is not today,” says Dr.
Richard Rothman, institute chair of hospital medicine
at Cleveland Clinic’s Indian River site.
Hospitals in Indian River, St. Lucie and Martin
counties are seeing more than twice as many patients
admitted with the virus as during surges in the past.
A full 90% of these patients are unvaccinated. Patients
are younger — and sicker — than in previous months. >>
Treasure Coast Medical Report