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Metro Atlanta Doctors Paint a Bleak Picture of Omicron's Toll
Marietta Daily Journal
Sat Jan 22, 2022
Category: Health News
Area: Atlanta
As they did five months ago when the delta variant was ravaging Georgia, doctors from six of metro Atlanta's largest healthcare providers joined forces Thursday to pull back the curtain on the toll omicron is now taking on their hospitals.
The physicians and medical officers from Grady Healthcare, Piedmont Healthcare, Wellstar Health System, Children's Healthcare of Atlanta, Northeast Georgia Health System, and Emory Healthcare painted a picture of an industry nearly broken by wave after wave of COVID-19 infections.
"What is different now compared to what we saw in August, or even this time last year — it's wall-to-wall stretchers," said Dr. Robert Jansen, Grady's chief medical officer. "We have no capacity left at the hospital ... We have more patients than we've ever had."
Jansen later added, "Early in the pandemic, we had the heroes, the health heroes and everybody was out banging on pots and pans. Well now, healthcare doesn't feel like heroes anymore."
One of the main thrusts of the joint appearance, conducted virtually, was trying to head off the rumors, misinformation and outright falsehoods which grow in lockstep with each wave of the virus.
Dr. Jayne Morgan, head of Piedmont's COVID-19 Task Force, said she's been getting an alarming number of questions from people asking whether they should intentionally contract the virus and "get it over with" — something Morgan called "an absolutely terrible idea."
Ticking off added burdens to the healthcare system, the depletion of valuable medical supplies, and the risks of "long COVID," Morgan added, "This is not the time to take a risk like that with your life. You might be lucky, but you might not be."
Other panelists ticked off true stories of patients they'd watched die, at times unnecessarily. Dr. Supriya Mannepalli of Northeast Georgia Heath System spoke of a young woman who was pregnant when she fell ill with COVID.
"We were able to save the baby by elective C-section but mom, after a prolonged battle, did not make it. What if — what if she was vaccinated? There are so many patient stories like that (which) stay with us," Mannepalli recalled.
Dr. Danny Branstetter, Wellstar's top infectious disease doctor, framed his portion of the briefing through the story of a real family that was destroyed by the virus. He spoke of a 70-year-old man who fell and broke his hip, caused by weakness while infected with COVID. His daughter, and then eight other family members all ended up becoming infected.
"This family, not unlike many others in our community, (was) relatively healthy ... all members eligible for vaccination, yet none received the vaccinations," Branstetter recalled. "That story has a devastating ending. That family no longer has three family members present because of COVID-19."
Each panelist included, as they did in August, a plea for residents to get vaccinated and practice the well-known health and safety guidelines of social distancing, wearing a mask, and washing hands. If the public follows suit, they said, things might finally turn a corner.
"This is a real interesting time, because everybody's tired of talking about this," said Jansen, who throughout, spent little time sugar-coating his assessments. "There are people saying it is getting better — we haven't seen that at Grady. We are in a plateau level. It may be improving in the next week or so. We're hopeful for that. But then we have to be ready, because this isn't going to go away. COVID-19 isn't going to disappear after this wave."
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