January 20, 2022 - Community Engagement Virtual Meeting

QUESTIONS FOR 1/20/2021 COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT MEETING

CURRENT COVID NUMBERS IN KAWEAH HEALTH

Positive COVID-19 cases currently in Kaweah Health: 94 adults, 2 pediatric patients. 25% of the patients are incidental findings or not admitted due to COVID-they have some other primary diagnosis
How many are in ICU and do we have empty beds in our ICU? 8 in ICU and 10 empty beds
Positive Employees at Kaweah Delta: 232
Hospital Census: 315 (95%)
Vaccinated employee percentage: ~82% with only 50% boosted.

CA 7-day positivity peaked a few days ago and has been trending downward. Now at 21.1% through January 16.

Kaweah Health 7-day positivity at 36.2% through January 18, though has been 35-36 for about 5 days now so hopefully peaking…time will tell…obviously our COVID+ inpatients are spiking quickly to 96 today from 55 seven days ago.

SoCal and the Bay Area still lead the state’s 5 regions, with our region now up to #3.

Tulare County now up to #24 out of 58 CA counties, with 7-day positivity of 29.0% (21.0% one week ago), and a whopping 7270 new cases reported in the last week (2058 in the week prior).

How is this surge affecting staffing?
The surge is heavily impacting staffing with 254 staff currently out on COVID leave, which impacts our ability to staff beds, clinics and urgent care centers, further decreasing capacity during a time when the community needs more.There is a high rate of employees returning and the daily number fluctuates between 220-260.

2. Is Kaweah following the CDC guidelines and allowing employees to return to work after 5 days?

We stayed with the 7-day quarantine due to risk of transmission, but talk routinely about adjusting if necessary. The risk of transmission of COVID at:

5-days = 31-39% risk of transmission
7-days = 5-12% risk of transmission
10-days = 1-10% risk of transmission

3. How many COVID tests are being performed each day at our clinics?

We have a total of 11,508 COVID tests in our organization since Jan 1^st
Of these, 8,071 tests were performed our outpatient clinics
Considering most locations operate 6 days/week, we’re running ~504 tests/day in our clinics and about 180/day across our acute care hospital locations

Is there a higher demand for vaccines or is it staying steady?

Month	1^st/2^nd	% Change By Month	Booster	% Change By Month
Nov	112	-	860	-
Dec	73	(34%)	997	16%
Jan (31 day extrapolated)	70	(4%)	603	(40%)

The reports are saying that folks who are fully vaccinated and have received their booster are getting COVID.

For some of these types of events infection occurred very shortly after the booster vaccination was received. It takes approximately 2 weeks for the body to produce antibodies in response to vaccination.

Additionally, while vaccines in general are a very beneficial means of protection against infection, they are not always full proof. Vaccine efficacy varies as we have seen during the COVID-19 pandemic. The general rule of vaccination is to vaccinate as many people at risk for infection so those who are not vaccinated are protected through herd immunity. It is this ‘herd immunity’ that also protects those vaccinated with a vaccine that isn’t a particularly good match for the infectious agent it protects against. For instance, influenza vaccination at its best is about 70% effective for the circulating seasonal strain of influenza viruses. When a greater portion of the population is vaccinated, given the reduced efficacy of the vaccine <70%, there is less susceptible hosts in general by which the virus can infect.