Northeast Alabama Regional Medical Center in Anniston and Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital in San Francisco held celebrations in May after seeing their first days with no COVID-19 patients, according to CNN. Both hospitals have since treated several COVID-19 patients, but case numbers are much lower than during winter’s peak.
Hospitals in Utah and Connecticut likewise have not seen any COVID-19 patients for the first time since the start of the pandemic, and a hospital in Minnesota closed down its COVID-19 unit. The milestones largely can be credited to COVID-19 vaccines, according to the report.
However, uneven vaccination rates in the U.S. have caused some hospitals to face a recent uptick in COVID-19 patients, nearly exclusively among unvaccinated patients. Jeff Absalon, MD, the chief physician executive for St. Charles Health System in Bend, told CNN that Central Oregon remains “in the middle of a surge of COVID patients.”
Jeffrey Chapman, MD, the chief medical officer at Cheyenne (Wyo.) Regional Medical Center, told CNN his staff are concerned about a recent uptick in COVID-19 patients. “When we see literally numbers doubling and tripling in a week, we get scared,” he told the publication.
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