PEORIA, Ill. – OSF Saint Francis Medical Center President Bob Anderson at Thursday’s Peoria City/County Health Department (PCCHD) weekly briefing said COVID-19 hospitalizations are trending younger, much like the new cases being seen recently.
Last week, Public Health Administrator Monica Hendrickson said 40% of Peoria County’s active cases were under the age of 30.
Anderson now says hospitalizations are also reflecting that data.
“The hospital admission profile pretty much mirrors what you’re seeing in the community,” said Anderson. “We are seeing younger patients, at all levels of care, that are positive.”
Due to the recent surge in cases and hospitalizations, OSF has experienced slow-downs in getting patients placed from their emergency departments, according to Anderson.
“As we get patients coming to our emergency departments – and we don’t have patients getting discharged at the same rate – patients get boarded in the emergency department,” said Anderson. “It’s not optimal care, but it is a reality that we’re facing.
“I do want to assure everyone we are accepting patients who present heart attacks, stroke, traumas, and everything like that.”
According to Hendrickson, the pause put on the Johnson & Johnson (J&J) vaccine shows how closely data from the vaccines is monitored.
“Imagine that we are able to pause a large-scale vaccine campaign, because we have data that we collect to that granular level,” said Hendrickson. “This just shows the way we’ve done our vaccine campaign in this country does work – we’re keeping ourselves to a very high standard.”
According to Hendrickson, PCCHD currently has 3,000 unusable J&J vaccine doses due to the pause in administration.
As more doses of the Moderna and Pfizer vaccine become available, there will be more locations throughout the community where people can receive the shots.
“Peoria County is going to be transitioning away from Heddington Oaks as the one-and-done type of location,” said Hendrickson. “We’re going to be moving to having more flexible and mobile responses.”
Hendrickson says this will affect the hours of Heddington Oaks starting next week, but it will not affect anyone’s second shot appointment if they have already received their first at the location.
