The number of COVID-19 patients at The University of Kansas Health System is down today. 11 people with the active virus are being treated, down from 15 yesterday. Of those patients, four are in the ICU, down from five yesterday. Three of those patients are on ventilators, down from four yesterday. 11 other patients are still hospitalized because of COVID-19 but are out of the acute infection phase, same as yesterday. That’s a total of 26 patients, up from 22 yesterday. HaysMed has three patients with one active, up from two yesterday.
On today’s Morning Media Update, long haul patient Anil Gharmalkar returned to talk about how his life has changed in the year since he caught COVID-19. His pulmonologist, Dr. Leslie Spikes, discussed the different ways these patients are being helped in the specialized health system clinic.
Doctors began by addressing media questions. They commented on the new CDC guidelines allowing people to take off masks outdoors if fully vaccinated. They said that’s easy and safe, but it would be much more dangerous to take them off indoors because that’s where 90 to 95 percent of COVID-19 infections are developed. They say it’s important to take into account the ventilation and number of vaccinated people indoors, and say restaurants opening to a packed house indoors makes them nervous. They also reported that of the 11 active COVID-19 patients currently being treated in the health system, ranging in age from 20 to 71, only one reported being vaccinated before admission. They urged everyone to get vaccinated and reminded us that it decreases your chance of hospitalization by 95 percent.
Anil Gharmalkar recounted his story of being a long distance truck driver, and catching the virus on the road a year ago, barely making back home to his rural Kansas home. He described how the symptoms came on quickly and how he had to be flown to The University of Kansas Health System and put on a ventilator. His wife was even asked how far she wanted doctors to go to try to save him. But he gradually improved enough to leave the hospital on May 7. He’s had many complications and surgeries since then, mostly dealing with an airway that keeps becoming inflamed and closing, and is considering whether to have a procedure that may or may not improve things. But he takes one day at a time, and he’s grateful for the time he has with his family, no matter how long that may be. He calls the whole experience “different and surreal,” but says it’s much better to walk in than fly into the hospital for ongoing treatment.
Dr. Spikes, a pulmonologist, is one of many doctors who see patients in the multidisciplinary post-acute COVID clinic at the health system. Patients in the clinic need to be referred by their primary care doctor. She says they have been constantly adding specialists in areas like cardiology, pulmonology, neurology, rehab, family medicine and psychology to keep up with the demand. She calls it “disturbing” that 30 to 50 percent of patients who get COVID-19 are still having problems months after recovering from the virus itself. She described some of the most common symptoms, including shortness of breath and fatigue, and says it can be discouraging to some patients when normal tests don’t find the cause. She added that while it’s not known what causes brain fog, one of the more common symptoms, a major research study into that is due to begin soon. She said most patients express regret about getting the virus in the first place. Her advice to every patient she sees in her practice is to get vaccinated as soon as possible.
Dana Hawkinson, MD, medical director of Infection Prevention and Control at The University of Kansas Health System, pointed to published data showing that people six months after COVID-19 have in increased risk of dying or continuing to be ill and facing returns to the hospital. He says while there’s no research yet to back it, many doctors report the COVID-19 vaccine has reduced some of the long haul symptoms. He describes the patients in the long haul clinic as otherwise healthy people in the workforce who now can’t support themselves or their families and says the best way to avoid that is to get vaccinated, keep wearing a mask and observe all the pillars of infection prevention.
Steve Stites, MD, chief medical officer at the University of Kansas Health System, says there’s an appropriate time to end mask mandates, both inside and out, but medically speaking, now is not the time to end the indoor requirements. In his words, “I don’t think the evidence is clear enough right now that it is safe to go indoors without a mask.” He also doesn’t think there is enough evidence to eliminate capacity limits so that anybody can go inside, or restaurants can go back to full capacity. He wonders how so many people can be “disconnected too often from the truth,” He says it’s people like Anil Gharmalkar who help remind us the high stakes and how much further we still have to go before the pandemic is over.
Thursday, April 29 at 8:00 a.m. is the next Morning Media Update. Tomorrow, The Journal of the American Medical Association will release research on the impact of COVID-19 on cancer screenings, research done by our Chair of Radiation Oncology, Dr. Ronald Chen. Dr. Chen will share the findings, which are not good, and will require a large public health effort to overcome a major deficit in cancer screenings.
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