Spectrum Health provided a COVID-19 update Wednesday. The hospital is hopeful the area has reached a peak in cases. The concern is that the B117 variant is now the prevalent strain. How is it spreading and who’s at risk?
The B117 COVID variant is 50 to 75% more contagious than previous strains.
Spectrum is reporting 291 patients systemwide being treated. Dr. Darryl Elmouchi is President Spectrum Health West Michigan, he says that’s a 20% increase over last week. Seventy of those patients have been admitted to the Intensive Care Unit.
“Today in our hospital the average age of a patient with COVID-19 is 57," said Elmouchi. "This is almost a decade younger than they were during the last surge, and 15% of the people hospitalized at Spectrum Health with COVID-19 are under the age of 40.”
Young, healthy people without preexisting conditions and children are becoming very sick. The variant is displaying a tendency to spread easily among infected elementary school students.
“As of today, we have 10 patients who are admitted to Helen DeVos Children’s Hospital with COVID symptomatology and five of those are currently in our ICU setting.”
Dr. Houssain Marandi is President of Helen DeVos Children’s Hospital. He and the entire staff are asking everyone continue practicing and modelling prevention measures for young people and getting vaccinated limiting virus spread.