Editor’s note: Dr. William Miller, chief of staff at the Adventist Health Mendocino Coast Hospital, is writing weekly reports concerning the COVID-19 situation on the Mendocino Coast. We are pleased to be running his health column, with details on the medical fight against the pandemic. The views shared in this weekly column are those of the author, Dr. William Miller, and do not necessarily represent those of The Mendocino Voice or of Adventist Health.
Last week, I intended to address the topic of breakthrough cases. However, last week was also a week in which I was taking care of patients in the hospital and because of increasing cases throughout the county I ended up not being able to find the time to write my weekly column for which I apologize. This week, I want to give you an update on the local surge in cases and will dedicate next week to talking about breakthrough. In the meantime, The Wall Street Journal reported a headline today that I think sums the situation up very accurately and succinctly, “As Delta Surges, COVID-19 Breakthrough Cases Remain Uncommon.”
The past week has seen greater numbers of new cases in Mendocino County than during any part of the pandemic thus far. On August 13th, there were 150 new cases on that one day alone. This is a huge increase as the current running weekly average has been 40 per day. The highest number of cases previously was 74 on November 12th during the start of the winter surge.
If even 10% of those people end up requiring hospitalization, it will put a significant strain on our three hospitals over the next few weeks. The hospitalization rate with Delta may be closer to 20%. As of this writing, we have a total of 32 patients in our three hospitals with COVID. That comprises about 1/3 of all hospitalized patients. Compare that to the average number of hospitalized COVID cases the previous week which was 19. Nearly all these patients were unvaccinated.
Being that all three hospitals in the county are part of the Adventist Health (AH) system, we can freely share resources including some technical and leadership personnel, beds, ventilators, personal protective equipment (PPE) and medications. We have activated our Incident Command structure to coordinate all efforts so that resources can be directed where needed most. We are also able to tap into resources from the rest of the AH system.
To help meet the expected increased demand for hospital beds, we are postponing all but the most essential of elective in-patient surgeries. We have obtained five more ventilators from the AH system pool to be shared as needed between the three hospitals. We have enough PPE. The mainstay of treatment remains Decadron and Remdesivir, both of which we sufficient stocks of. Testing supplies remains adequate as well.
The biggest challenge is staffing. However, despite a rumor going around, at no time have we been understaffed at any of the three hospitals, meaning, we always remained within the regulated staffing ratios. However, at the Coast in particular, we have had to cap admissions at times to stay within those ratios. Our surge plan calls for reassigning staff within the hospital as needed to help ensure that we can care for patients as the surge continues. Most hospitals in Northern California are experiencing similar challenges making it less likely that we will be able to transfer patients out of the county.
There is a worsening national shortage of almost all types of hospital staff, especially nurses and respiratory therapists. Some parts of the country are paying very high premiums to get the nurses they need and this is starting to create competition between hospitals and hospital systems who need to get sufficient staff to care for these rising numbers of patients.
Both AH Ukiah Valley and AH Howard Memorial are near capacity, each with a small number of patients waiting in the ER to get admitted. AH Mendocino Coast has capacity and has been able to accept patients from our two sister hospitals to reduce the burden and ensure high quality care for all patients in our county. This is an important example of sharing resources. Our ambulance service has brought extra resources into play to help facilitate movement of such patients. This is being done in such a way as to ensure that we continue to have the same availability of ambulance services to respond to 911 calls on the Coast as always.
Our surge plan, which consolidates resources across the three hospitals includes bringing online almost 50 more beds in the county if needed. This will include opening up units at Ukiah and the Coast that are currently closed, such as the L&D unit on the Coast. We are continuing to monitor this unfolding situation and responding accordingly.
You can access previous Miller Reports by visiting www.WMillerMD.com.
The views shared in this weekly column are those of the author, Dr. William Miller, and do not necessarily represent those of the publisher or of Adventist Health.
Courtesy of Jack Phillips
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) added a warning about the risk of developing heart inflammation to information about the Moderna and Pfizer COVID-19 vaccines.
The FDA announced earlier this month that it would add the warning after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) had reported that more cases of heart inflammation—either myocarditis or pericarditis—were found in young adults and children after they received the vaccines, which use mRNA technology.
On June 25, the agency said that it would add revisions to its patient and provider fact sheets about the “increased risks of myocarditis (inflammation of the heart muscle) and pericarditis (inflammation of the tissue surrounding the heart) following vaccination” using the Pfizer or Moderna COVID-19 shots. The Pfizer or Moderna vaccines use mRNA technology and require two doses, whereas the vaccine made by Johnson & Johnson uses an adenovirus and requires a single dose.
Heart damage in young people reap a lifetime of monetary windfalls for medical establishments.
Courtesy of James Riccards
One of the reasons the per capita rate of infection and fatality in Sub-Saharan Africa has been so much lower than was expected at the start of the pandemic is because Africans routinely take hydroxychloroquine to prevent malaria.
Hydroxychloroquine is cheap and safe and seems to have excellent prophylactic properties against the COVID virus. Likewise, the drug Ivermectin, which is also cheap and safe, has had fantastic results in helping to mitigate a severe outbreak of the Delta variant of the virus in India.
In India, Ivermectin may have stopped COVID dead in its tracks. 61 studies incorporating about 23,000 people revealed as much as a 96% reduction in death by taking Ivermectin.
Why have you not heard more about the role of hydroxychloroquine in Africa?
Why have you not heard more about the role of Ivermectin in India?
Why are both drugs not being more widely utilized to fight COVID?
We have a “casedemic” cases, cases, cases… yet why don’t they mention the death rate is 0.66? That’s 2.13 deaths per million people and 406 cases per million!
There is more information in the first 2 comments than in the article!
Using remdesivir (Fraudci’s protocol) is all you need to know. I wonder if that good Dr. William is still using the recalled Innova tests? You know the one that the FDA slapped a Recall Class 1 on and sent them a warning letter. Or instead of the failed PCR test, is he using one of the “approved by the FDA” tests? hmm…
Thank you Lorenzo.
Mainstream Media Finally Gives A Platform To Scientists Speaking Out Against Biden’s Push For Booster Jabs
BY TYLER DURDEN
FRIDAY, AUG 20, 2021
At this point, it probably shouldn’t come as a surprise that the Biden Administration plan to provide COVID-19 booster shots before the FDA even has a chance to sign off isn’t actually based on any actual “science”. And some of the mainstream scientists are starting to speak up about it, opening themselves up to the possibility that their posts might be purged by Big Tech “misinformation” censors.
Just as new data show that young people are at heightened risk for rare side effects like heart inflammation (with the Moderna jab carrying a higher risk), scientists are claiming that the push for boosters represents a rush to judgment, since it’s still unclear whether the waning protection against ‘breakthrough’ infection also leaves patients more vulnerable to severe illness. While one might be tempted to assume that more infections means more hospitalizations and deaths, ‘breakthrough’ infections tend to be far milder, and only the most vulnerable patients are likely to be impacted severely.
Almost as surprisingly, a report about scientists’ objections was published by Reuters, a mainstream media organization with a massive reach.
Come On Medocino Docs. Step up and do the right thing.
You’re welcome Alberta and thank you too for standing up to the tyranny unfolding right before us… like the old saying, “hide in plain sight”.