On Tuesday afternoon, Dec. 1, hospitals across the city were telling ambulance drivers to expect delays at emergency rooms across the city. All of them, with the exception of Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital, were full. Memphis ERAlert sent a tweet at 2:19 p.m. saying all EMS personnel should expect long offload times.
The two-decades-old relationship between Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare and the University of Tennessee Health Science Center could see dramatic changes in the coming year, as the number of UT residents hosted by Methodist may sharply decrease and an existing partnership between the groups’ physicians could be dissolved.
Dr. Manoj Jain will see COVID-19 patients in the hospital before his miniaturized Thanksgiving with only immediate family. “We usually have four families that have been getting together for Thanksgiving for two decades,” said Jain, who is advising Mayor Jim Strickland’s administration on the pandemic. “Not this year.”
Hans Guenther spent a couple of days in the hospital with COVID-19 last spring. At his worst, he was on oxygen, fighting fever and sweats, and lying in bed wondering if he was about to move from one category to another.
“The goal is to keep people out of the hospital. We are very, very hopeful,” said Dr. Scott Strome, executive dean of the College of Medicine at University of Tennessee Health Science Center. “Our numbers are going through the roof.”
Moderna Inc. is the second pharmaceutical in a week to announce that an independent monitoring board has found its vaccine highly effective against COVID-19. Moderna’s Phase 3 showed 94.5% efficacy. Last Monday, Pfizer’s Phase 3 vaccine showed a 90% success rate in fighting the virus. The FDA has said it would accept vaccines that showed… Read More
For months, the $51 million remake of the former Commercial Appeal building has offered the unsettling reassurance that the region has a reservoir if the hospital system gets overwhelmed. On Thursday, leaders at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center, who will be in charge of running it, said they are worried about finding the… Read More
Pfizer announced early Monday, Nov. 9, that its vaccine has shown to be a surprising 90% effective in preventing COVID-19. “The results demonstrate that our mRNA-based vaccine can help prevent COVID-19 in the majority of people who receive it,” Pfizer Chairman and CEO Albert Bourla said. “This means we are one step closer to potentially… Read More
