‘Lost too many people’: California hospital pleads with unvaccinated as COVID surges
Local health leaders are pleading with one of California’s least-vaccinated communities to change course and get inoculated, as the region’s lone hospital once again faces a flood of COVID-19 patients, this time due largely to the delta variant.
Sutter and Yuba, two mostly rural counties combining for roughly 180,000 residents, currently have among the highest rates of coronavirus activity in the state. The California Department of Public Health on Monday reported recent test positivity rates of 13.3% in Yuba and 12.8% in Sutter, fifth- and sixth-worst among all 58 counties.
“From what we’re seeing in the community right now, in terms of people testing positive with early COVID symptoms, we expect to see our hospitalization rate in the next seven to 10 days start going up significantly,” Rick Rawson, president of Adventist-Rideout in Yuba County seat Marysville, said in a video posted Friday by bicounty health officer Dr. Phuong Luu.
Rawson gave a similar warning early in the previous surge last November, as the number of COVID-19 patients at his hospital exploded from three to 20 in a little over a week.
That surge ultimately saw about one-third of licensed hospital beds at Rideout — 73 of 221 — filled with virus patients in the final few days of 2020.
Adventist-Rideout started June 2021 with just four hospitalized and none in an ICU for COVID-19. With a new surge fueled by the highly contagious delta variant, Rideout as of Sunday had 22 COVID-19 patients, including six in intensive care, state health data show. Those are the hospital’s highest totals since early March and late February, respectively.
“That puts all of us at significant risk,” said Rawson, who recently announced his retirement from the hospital at the end of October. “It puts our economy at risk, it puts our businesses at risk and it puts our health care workers at risk.”
The major difference between now and last year, Rawson said, is that vaccines are readily available.
COVID-19 activity is soaring, though, because of the delta variant and the fact that fewer than half of eligible residents are vaccinated, he said.
Yuba has consistently ranked near the bottom of California in vaccination rate. Through Saturday, the county had about 32% of its residents fully vaccinated and 37% with at least one dose, according to CDPH data — far behind the statewide rates of 53% fully and 61% at least partially vaccinated.
Of 11 Yuba County residents hospitalized, the local health office reported Friday that at least 10 were not fully vaccinated, with the 11th patient’s vaccination status not reported.
Dr. Kamara Graham, the medical director of Adventist-Rideout’s emergency department, said in another recent video message that over 98% of patients admitted with symptomatic COVID-19 infections are unvaccinated.
Sutter County’s rates are higher than Yuba’s — 41% fully protected and 48% with at least a first dose — but also trail California’s averages.
“I understand there’s many in our community that are concerned or have questions,” said Rawson, who has worked for Adventist Health for nearly three decades.
“But what I can tell you is that the risks of not getting vaccinated far outweigh the risks of getting vaccinated — not just for yourself, but for our entire community.”
Graham and Rawson urged community members to get vaccinated and to wear a mask indoors to limit delta spread. Luu, the county health officer, has not issued an indoor mask mandate; as of Monday morning, Sacramento, Los Angeles and Yolo were the only three California counties to have done so.
The good news is that people do seem to be heeding health officials’ warnings as delta spreads. First doses of vaccine have been rising in almost every corner of California since around mid-July.
Many of California’s biggest week-over-week increases have come in areas with delta surges and low cumulative vaccination rates, a recent Sacramento Bee analysis of state health figures found. Yuba and Sutter have both observed significant upticks.
More recent CDPH data show that last Friday saw more residents of both Sutter and Yuba receive a first dose than any other day since late May.
Sutter and Yuba counties during the pandemic have reported more than 17,000 cases of COVID-19, more than 1,100 of whom have been hospitalized. At least 152 have died of the virus.
“We’ve lost too many people in this community to date, and we don’t need to lose any more,” Rawson said.
This story was originally published August 2, 2021 at 10:25 AM with the headline "‘Lost too many people’: California hospital pleads with unvaccinated as COVID surges."
