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Geisinger COVID intakes are at concerning levels

‘Not out of the woods’

With COVID-19 hospitalizations averaging 180 to 200 people across Geisinger campuses, President and CEO Dr. Jaewon Ryu’s message as clear: “We are not out of the woods.”

Ryu offered an update on the pandemic and took questions from the media in a virtual briefing Friday morning.

“Locally, our trends are still somewhat concerning,” he said. “Over the last week or two, we have seen or hovered around 180 to 200 hospitalized cases across all of our capuses. That’s comparable to where we were last mid-November.”

The number of cases that Geisinger is treating is not decreasing as it is in other areas of the country, he added.

“We are hearing a lot about other areas that have already peaked, they are on their way down. We are not quite seeing that yet. We are not yet dropping consistently the way that we would like,” he said. “Long story short here is that we are not out of the woods.”

Ryu made it clear the effect that vaccines have on aiding individuals who do contract COVID and keeping them out of hospitals.

“Over the past five months… If you look at the number of folks who have been hospitalized at our campuses… About 90% of those that are hospitalized have not been vaccinated,” he said.

He brought up data from a recent Centers for Disease Control study showing those who are vaccinated are 5 times less likely to become infected, 10 times less likely to require hospitalization due to a COVID infection and 11 times less likely to die from a COVID infection.

“That’s pretty compelling evidence that the vaccine does work,” Ryu said.

Currently, 95% of all Geisinger staff members are vaccinated against COVID.

In a question and answer section, Ryu also briefly spoke about how the average age of patients admitted for COVID is beginning to drop from what it once was.

“As nine out of every 10 people admitted to a hospital with COVID are unvaccinated, we have also seen the average age of those COVID patients drop by more than 10 years,” he said.

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