El Paso Covid-19 hospitalizations at lowest levels since fall of 2021
EL PASO, Texas -- El Paso hospitals are seeing a drop in Covid-19 patients. For the first time since November, there are fewer than 200 Covid-19 patients at area hospitals, according to city data.
As of Monday morning, there were 150 patients hospitalized with Covid-19, and 44 were in intensive care.
There were more than 500 Covid-19 patients back in mid-January during El Paso's peak in cases from the Omicron variant.
"It appears that the Omicron surge, which happened here a couple of weeks later than the rest of the country, just like the rest of the country, now is in rapid decline," said Dr. Ed Michelson, Chief of Emergency Medicine at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center and a emergency physician at University Medical Center.
Dr. Michelson said unvaccinated patients are suffering the most, but hospitals are seeing more incidental cases of Covid-19
"Many of the patients we're admitting with Covid-19 are being admitted for a different reason. We test everyone when they come in to see if they have Covid and more than half, maybe two-thirds of patients have Covid as an incidental finding, but it's not the reason they've come to the hospital or the reason they're being admitted," Dr. Michelson said."
While the pressure is off in the intensive care units, hospital staff are still busy taking care other patients.
"Nursing shortages remain a problem. We haven't seen our regular nurses returning," Dr. Michelson said. "A lot of them left to do agency work. That will be falling off in the coming weeks, but we haven't seen the return of our normal numbers of nurses. So there are times we simply can't stamp all of our beds and that's true throughout the city, probably throughout the nation."
Dr. Michelson said he expects the downward trend in hospitalizations to continue. He encourages those who are not vaccinated or have received their booster shot to do so. You can make an appointment by clicking here.
