Valleywise Health opens second COVID-19 unit amid rising cases

PHOENIX — A major hospital system serving Maricopa County announced Thursday it has opened a second COVID-19 unit to care for patients amid rising cases fueled by the more transmissible delta variant of the virus.

“We are now operating two separate COVID-19 units to be able to accommodate the increased number of patients that are presenting to us that require hospitalization,” Dr. Michael White, chief clinical officer, said in a press conference.

He said the hospital system was able to consolidate to one unit earlier this summer when cases of the virus were lower.

Cases have been back on the rise recently with White saying the delta variant is over two times more infectious than the original strain.

Daily reported cases of the virus have been in the thousands after not seeing numbers that high since March.

The percent positivity for diagnostic testing conducted last week was 14% as of Thursday’s update from the Arizona Department of Health Services, the highest since January.

White said there are 25 patients in the hospital for COVID-19 as of Thursday, seven of which are on a ventilator.

A significant trend in the population of those being hospitalized with severe symptoms are people who are not vaccinated, White said.

“Those folks have chosen for whatever reason not to receive the vaccine are the ones that are being predominantly affected with these severe signs and symptoms that are requiring them to need a hospitalization,” White said.

“We continue to see this being a patient population that is skewing younger, under 50 (years old) population for the most part of our average age of individuals who are being hospitalized with these severe signs and symptoms and needing treatment for the COVID-19 disease.”

The original unit can hold 12 people and is full, White said, while the second unit can hold 28.

Prior spikes forced hospitals to stop performing elective surgery, but White said Valleywise has not reached that point.

He said it’s something the hospital system watches daily and the only thing that would curtail elective surgeries is if there is a marked increase in multiple COVID-19 units opening and the hospital being unable to adequately care for patients in post-op.

Even though hospitalizations in the state related to COVID-19 have more than doubled over the past month, the numbers remain far below the peaks reached before vaccines were widely available.

White stressed the importance of encouraging vaccines and that the benefits outweigh the potential side effects.

“The side effects of the vaccine are really minimal but the benefits are huge around preventing that severe illness,” White said.

“Those folks (people who are vaccinated) could still get this new delta variant, but we aren’t seeing those individuals that have been vaccinated requiring hospitalization for severe illness.”

White also encourages masks when out and about in close spaces no matter the vaccination status as he said wearing a mask protects others in case a vaccinated person is carrying the virus.

“We need to continue to advocate vaccines and masking in these situations so we can get a hold of this and hopefully control the spread of this virus so we don’t see this continued growth in the number of patients that are testing positive from this,” White said.

“We do not want to see things that we saw earlier this year.”

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