96% of COVID patients at Methodist, Baptist are unvaccinated
More than 96% of people in local hospitals with COVID are unvaccinated.Their numbers are swamping emergency departments everywhere.
In the Media Tag: Richard Walker
Nursing ranks are gutted; those left feel unappreciated, overworked
“I can’t give you numbers, but every hospital has empty beds now,” said Dr. Richard Walker, interim chair of Emergency Medicine at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center.
Dangerously over capacity’ ERs at risk of treating only those likely to survive
With projections that COVID hospitalizations will double by the end of August and increase sixfold by late September, health and city officials are hammering home the role everyone has now to preserve the health care systems.
New mask mandate goes into effect 7 a.m. Friday
The Shelby County Health Department issued a mask mandate Wednesday, effective 7 a.m. Friday, Aug. 20, for everyone age 2 and older, regardless of vaccination status.It applies to all indoor, public settings. Outdoor events will not require masking.
Local ICU capacity expected to be ‘severely stressed,’ ER wait times up
Every emergency room in Memphis is holding patients, often 24 hours or more, waiting for beds to open. Within days, the Memphis-Shelby County COVID-19 Task Force is expected to announce plans for how health care will proceed as the number of cases is expected to surpass last winter’s peak.
In one form or another, COVID-19 probably here to stay
“Viruses exist to thrive. ”That’s a line from William Haseltine’s recent essay for Scientific American. Haseltine is a former Harvard School of Medicine professor and author of “Variants! The Shape-Shifting Challenge of COVID-19.” Even when straitened to the single question, “How Will the Coronavirus Evolve?”— and that’s the title of his essay —COVID-19 is a… Read More
Average age of those hospitalized for COVID falls dramatically
Doctors tending the COVID wings in local hospitals are sucking in their breath for different reasons. Patient numbers are nothing like they were at the height of the winter surge, but the people in their care now are younger and often very sick. “We had stopped seeing as many badly ill patients about three-four weeks… Read More
Long-haul Covid patients can experience ‘waves of symptoms,’ early research suggests
Dr. Richard Walker, chairman of emergency medicine for the University of Tennessee Health Science Center in Memphis, said Lambert’s work was “very important research.” “Any time we can predict the course of the disease, it offers us the ability to mitigate problems,” said Walker, who was not involved in the research.