As delta tears through Albany County, vaccination picks up
Unvaccinated patients are overwhelming hospitals across the West, including in Laramie, but more people choose to get vaccinated every day. It’s not enough to stop the death and disease already here.
The vaccination rate in Albany County continues to tick upward, as more residents become vaccinated each and every day.
But more than half a year after the first vaccines became available — and about five months after the vaccine became available for most Wyoming residents — Albany County has yet to achieve a 50 percent vaccination rate.
The slow uptake locally — and the even slower uptake statewide — has allowed the delta variant to spread rapidly, overwhelming the healthcare system, and killing hundreds.
In the last month alone, 120 Wyoming residents have been killed by COVID-19.
“If we had the rate of vaccination we have now from the start, COVID probably would have been over,” said Christine Porter, a public health expert at the University of Wyoming. “We wouldn’t have had the delta wave in the U.S. right now if people had gotten vaccinated to start with. So now, the proportion we need to get vaccinated to halt that is probably out of reach, frankly.”
Since mid-June, the adult vaccination rate in Albany County has risen from 48.5 to 54.5 percent. The vaccination rate for the entire population — which includes children under 12 who cannot be vaccinated — rose from 41 to more than 48 percent.
The largest increase — more than 11 percentage points — has been among the county’s elderly population. In mid-June, less than 71 percent of those 65 and older had been vaccinated. That figure is now nearly 82 percent.
But Wyoming still has the second lowest vaccination rate in the country, and that low level of vaccination is the chief cause of the current explosion in cases, hospitalizations and deaths.
“States with the lowest vaccination rates have the highest transmission rates,” Albany County Public Health Officer Jean Allais said. “The more infections that occur, the more chances the virus has to continue to mutate, and develop more variants. Vaccination is our only way out of this.”
Why now, when vaccines have been widely available for months?
Albany County launched a vaccine incentive program this month, which has been paying people to get the shot and awarding $1,000 to vaccinated individuals in a weekly drawing.
But Allais said it’s too early to comment on the program’s effectiveness.
“Since the statistics posted by the (Wyoming Department of Health) are based on people who are fully vaccinated, we really will not know numbers until people who receive Moderna or Pfizer get their second dose three to four weeks later,” she said. “We do not have real-time data on how many doses have been given since the incentive program started.”
Porter said the incentive program might not be that persuasive on an individual level, but could encourage people who are simply putting off vaccination to go get the shot.
“It’s a reason to do it today instead of tomorrow,” Porter said. “I’m not saying (vaccination programs) are a bad idea, I just think they’re really marginal in terms of actually encouraging people. The other benefit of those programs is it’s part of building this culture of ‘Yes, getting vaccinated is the norm and it’s the thing we want to happen as a society, it’s good for the community.’”
Porter said the program’s other aim — providing transportation, childcare and missed work financial support — is laudable and “the right thing to do.”
“You want to create an equitable opportunity to get the vaccine,” she said.
Both Porter and Allais elaborated on other factors likely driving people to now get vaccinated. For example:
The FDA granted full approval to the Pfizer vaccine for everyone 16 and older. Previously, the vaccine only had emergency use authorization. While experts, medical professionals and government authorities insisted from the outset that the vaccine was safe, the new, stronger approval might have swayed at least a few cautious individuals. “That confirmed what we have known for months, that the vaccine was safe and effective,” Allais said. “However, that approval was important to some people.”
Further, overly cautious individuals who wanted to “wait and see” have had ample time to do so. “Millions and millions and millions of people have been vaccinated in the U.S. and around the world,” Porter said. “The tales of terror just aren’t true — and are demonstrably false — when you see some people getting the vaccine and being fine. Especially in contrast to watching our neighbors, friends and loved ones get sick, go to the hospital and even die among those who are not vaccinated.”
The highly contagious delta variant has led to a surge in all metrics, from cases to hospitalizations to deaths. Wyoming is currently experiencing the most intense spike in those measures since vaccines became available. So while a vaccine might not have seemed like a necessity in May — when hospitals were calmer and vaccinated individuals were allowed to mostly go about their lives mask-free — personal and communal protection might now take greater precedence. “We are seeing younger people with more severe illness with delta,” Allais said. “When someone sees a friend or family member with severe illness, it may prompt them to get vaccinated if they have not already done so.”
Several conservative radio commentators who advocated against masks and vaccines have now died from the virus, highlighting the danger posed by COVID-19 misinformation. However, it’s not clear how many people have been persuaded by this reality. Misinformation has been a major problem throughout the pandemic.
As the Biden Administration and OSHA prepare a plan to require vaccinations at companies with more than 100 employees, Gov. Gordon and others in Wyoming are preparing to fight that plan. Still, many are preparing to comply — including the University of Wyoming. “I suspect that some people know that mandates are coming their way potentially, depending on their profession,” Porter said. “And they go, ‘Well, I might as well just do it now rather than wait and be on a deadline.’”
How does the low level of vaccination impact hospitals?
Many hospitals, including Ivinson Memorial Hospital in Laramie, are being pushed to the limit. Hospitals across the Mountain West are being stretched thin — by mostly unvaccinated patients. Infected with the delta variant and lacking the vaccine that would diminish their symptoms and reduce their need for hospitalization, they are filling up hospital beds to the point at which elective surgeries must be cancelled for lack of space, staff and other resources.
Elective surgeries are not necessarily unimportant, but are simply those that can be scheduled (unlike emergency surgeries). The term can include everything from cosmetic surgery to more medically necessary surgeries such as mastectomies and kidney donations.
“Our hospitals would not be full if people were vaccinated,” Porter said. “People might still get sick and they might feel very sick, but this crisis of hospitalization would not have happened if people were vaccinated.”
Porter has come face-to-face with this crisis of hospitalization in her personal life. Originally, she was scheduled for surgery Thursday at the University of Colorado’s Anschutz Medical Campus.
“I was so looking forward to a surgery — which are not words that usually go together,” Porter said. “But I’m in a lot of pain and I need a repair to a new hip I got in January.”
In a scene familiar to many Americans waiting for elective surgeries right now, the hospital called Porter on Wednesday to cancel.
“They called me the day before and said, ‘Actually, sorry, we’re cancelling all of our surgeries,’” Porter said. “People who have broken bones cannot get surgery. People who have tumors that are exploding and are going to kill them because they’re not going to be removed have had their surgery cancelled also.”
And Porter is unequivocal about where the blame lies.
“The people who chose not to get vaccinated (and then therefore are now hospitalized with COVID) are killing other people not just by having spread COVID and variants that overcome the vaccine,” she said. “They are killing people by taking up beds in hospitals and preventing these emergency life-saving treatments for people.”
A similar situation is occurring at Ivinson Memorial Hospital, which has had to cancel some surgeries and has seen the ICU repeatedly hit full capacity.
“We are evaluating our elective surgeries on a daily basis,” Chief Nursing Officer Nicole Rooney said in a statement. “On Monday, we did have to cancel some of our scheduled elective cases due to our inpatient census. Patients that we have transferred have been due to the level of care needed that we were unable to provide, or because our ICU was at capacity.”
Ivinson can staff about 22 medical-surgical beds and four ICU beds at a time. While more beds exist on the campus and can be used depending on the intensity of care needed, the hospital is running up against other constraints when it nears those numbers — mainly staffing.
The average number of occupied beds in Ivinson’s ICU is currently triple what it was before COVID-19.
“In years past, we have averaged less than one ICU patient a day,” Rooney said. “This last year, we averaged 1.9 ICU patients in a day. In the last six weeks, we are averaging closer to three ICU patients in a day.”
Not all of those patients are there for COVID-19 obviously, but COVID-19 patients are a significant burden above and beyond what would normally be typical for the hospital.
“This has impacted our staffing because we have staff for two ICU patients a day,” Rooney said. “So when the census is higher, we have to add an additional ICU nurse. ICU nurses have specialized training, and higher ICU patient numbers does mean a greater strain on our ICU staffing.”
COVID patients have also been pushing the limits of the emergency department. A spokesperson for the hospital said that before the pandemic, the emergency room saw about 30 patients in any given 24-hour time period. The average now is closer to 40.
This suffering is largely preventable given the effectiveness of the vaccine. Allais urged residents to get vaccinated for their families, their community and themselves.
“Vaccination is our only way out of this,” she said. “The vaccines are safe and effective against all the strains, including the delta variant. This leaves the unvaccinated at most risk. We know that vaccinated people significantly reduce their risk of severe illness from COVID-19, greatly reducing their risk of hospitalization, and minimizing the risk of death.”
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