Pa. and N.J. hospitals see ‘dramatic’ drops in COVID-19 patients as omicron surge subsides

The omicron surge’s swift decline is bringing relief to Pennsylvania hospitals after weeks of intense stress, with the number of COVID-19 hospitalizations having dropped dramatically since the wave peaked.

The decline in case spread has been reflected inside emergency rooms and inpatient wards over the last few weeks, with hospital leaders seeing confirmation of the wave’s retreat. Even though case and hospitalization counts remain elevated, hospital officials are cautiously optimistic the trend will continue.

The highly transmissible variant pushed some hospitals and their exhausted workers close to the breaking point over the last two months. By early January, many systems were contending with two crises: an influx of COVID-19 patients and a record number of employee call-outs due to infections and exposures.

“It’s a dramatic difference,” said Michael Scalzone, chief quality officer for Guthrie hospitals in northeastern Pennsylvania, adding that employees have returned to routines that are “sort of normal.”

Over the last two weeks, new COVID-19 hospitalizations per capita have decreased by more than 40% in both Pennsylvania and New Jersey, according to federal data analyzed by the New York Times. In New Jersey, the number of hospitalized COVID-19 patients on Thursday was about a sixth of what it was at the height of the omicron surge, according to state data; in Pennsylvania, it was less than a third.

Main Line Health’s four hospitals had been treating about 50 active COVID-19 patients in recent days, down from 355 a month earlier. Penn Medicine said its emergency-room volume was back at “pre-surge levels” amid a “steady and encouraging decline” in the total number of virus patients.

In the central part of the state, Geisinger Health was treating fewer than 200 COVID-19 patients across its hospitals, a decrease from 351 mid-wave, officials said, while Lehigh Valley Health Network had about 300, down from more than 800. University of Pittsburgh Medical Center facilities were treating about 400 patients; they saw about 1,100 at the peak.

Though the numbers represent a dramatic and promising improvement, harder-hit hospitals are still recovering. Geisinger’s major hospitals, for example, are all still operating above capacity, even though the percentage of beds occupied by COVID-19 patients has dropped dramatically. Statewide, the number of people hospitalized remains higher than in fall 2020 and summer 2021, periods that were between surges.

While hospitalizations have come down, “there still is significant [virus] activity in the communities and the hospitals,” said UPMC chief medical officer Donald Yealy, just “not as much as there was literally two weeks ago, and two weeks before that.”

» READ MORE: 9,000 Pennsylvanians died in the omicron surge: ‘One of the most deadly waves we’ve seen’

Public health officials have been increasingly citing falling case and hospitalization numbers as a reason to lift mitigation measures, including mask and vaccine mandates. But, even with the progress they’re seeing, hospital officials across Pennsylvania said they still advise precautions, including masking in crowded indoor settings.

As the omicron surge eases nationwide, these trends mirror the broader landscape. Over the last two weeks, the United States’ daily average of hospitalizations has decreased about 40%, according to the Times analysis, and the metric was declining in every state as of Thursday.

Some states with below-average vaccination rates, such as West Virginia and Kentucky, however, have had the highest rates of new hospitalizations in the nation over the last week. Up-to-date vaccinations have been repeatedly shown to significantly reduce the risk of severe illness and death.

While about 3,500 people in Pennsylvania and New Jersey remained hospitalized with the virus on Thursday, and people continue to die from it, hospital officials say the steadily decreasing numbers of COVID-19 patients have brought welcome relief, as well as renewed hope for their worn-down employees.

“We suffered through something that was really dramatic and really consequential,” said Timothy Friel, chair of the department of medicine for Lehigh Valley Health Network. “We feel like we’ve come out the other side of that, the omicron tunnel.”

Far less community transmission of omicron also means fewer hospital employees out sick and fewer people who don’t need to be hospitalized coming to the emergency room with less significant virus concerns.

Lehigh Valley Health Network has recently logged fewer than five COVID-19-related absences a day among employees, Friel said. That puts the system in “a much more comfortable place” than it was just a month ago when more than 250 employees were out.

At Guthrie hospitals, about 5% or 6% of staff was out for virus-related reasons on their worst days, Scalzone said, but now that has declined to about 1%. UPMC facilities had 4% of its workforce out at the peak — about 4,000 workers. It’s now seeing less than 1% — about 700 out, Yealy said Monday.

Fewer absences, Friel said, allows hospitals to staff more beds and care for more patients, increasing a facility’s capacity.

With more workers, more staffed beds, and fewer COVID-19 patients, major backlogs in emergency rooms are occurring less often, several officials reported. Patients typically don’t have to wait as long to be seen in the emergency room, officials said, or to be taken to an open bed on another floor.

» READ MORE: What the latest numbers say about COVID-19 in the Philadelphia region

Yet hospitals are still stressed by larger staffing shortages, which were only exacerbated by the pandemic.

Geisinger is down staff at all levels, including nurses and respiratory therapists, which poses “a significant concern” going forward, Maloney said. Some of the employees who remain are now working “essentially a second job,” filling in for workers that the system has yet to replace. But, he added, that’s not a “sustainable” solution.

Due to these staffing issues, “the emergency departments still are working hard to meet all the demands,” said Yealy, of UPMC. “It’s improved, but we’re … not out of the difficult period.”