BUFFALO, N.Y. — Nationally and locally, new and grim records are being set on COVID-19 hospitalizations.
According to the Covid Tracking Project there are more than 90,000 people in the United States who are hospitalized with COVID-19.
Dr. Raul Vazquez of Urban Family Practice on Buffalo's West Side says symptoms of COVID seen in patients during the first wave of the pandemic are starting to return again.
"We're starting to get a little bit more of a respiratory types of presentations now," Vazquez said.
And demand for a test is so great that Vazquez says he ran out of rapid tests this week, after a supplier ran into production issues.
"It's still at the stage where you're seeing a lot more of the testing coming, back ER and inpatient utilizations, within the next week or two really start to climb like you're seeing it now," Vazquez said.
There's no doubt hospitalizations are climbing. On Thanksgiving eve, in Western New York, according to New York state's regional hospitalization dashboard, 350 people were in a hospital bed diagnosed with coronavirus, the most at any point in the pandemic.
"At this point, I think for us as Kaleida as well as the other hospitals in Western New York, it's manageable. The numbers are rising, but again, it's manageable. I think a tipping point comes when you look at four issues," said Michael Hughes, a spokesperson for Kaleida Health.
He says those four issues are staffing, supplies, hospital capacity, and testing.
At this point, Kaleida Health says while its hospitals are able to handle the rise in hospitalizations, staffing is the top issue to keep watching.
"It was our number one priority back in the spring and it's our number one priority now and that's keeping our employees safe and healthy," Hughes said.
He admits that even the heroes on the front lines get weary.
"I think first and foremost, I think most clinicians, most nurses and physicians those who are on the front line they're tired there is such a thing as Covid fatigue," Hughes said.
Battling COVID fatigue is something that doctors hope people can endure especially during the holiday season. 2 On Your Side also heard Friday from Erie County Medical Center, which says it has plenty of capacity and personal protection equipment on hand.
Local health experts have said most people are getting sick from people within their own household.
Many local hospitals tell us that unlike the first wave, they’re seeing more younger patients this time around, and there are fewer patients in intensive care because COVID therapies are much better than they were in the spring, and there are shorter hospital stays.
"We have a better way to manage these patients now there are some medications there’s the plasma there are different treatment modalities now that we’re better aware of than what we had in the spring when we were first hit with this," said Charlene Ludlow, ECMC's chief safety officer.