DANVILLE — The president and CEO of Geisinger says COVID-19 cases are on the rise in the Susquehanna Valley. Dr. Jaewon Ryu updated the news media recently on the increase of cases in The Valley.
“COVID is in our communities and it’s spreading. We are seeing that. We are remaining pretty concerned, but also super vigilant in terms of making sure that we are managing through that uptick and that hopefully we can stem the tide like we did early on back in the spring,” he said.
Dr. Ryu said from what we can see right now, it does look like COVID-19 is making more than just a resurgence, “I think the other problem is where we are in the season. With the holidays coming up and flu season, which is here every year and is about to hit us, and the cold weather pushing more and more activities indoors, these are all things that make it tougher to maintain the precautions that we have been mentioning to you all from the get-go.”
In terms of hospitalizations across the Geisinger system, Dr Ryu said, “The number of people in our hospitals, over the last couple of months, we are now above 80 or 90 as far as the number of patients that are hospitalized across our system on all of our hospital campuses. Compare that with the summer, where we were seeing 10, 20 and sometimes 30. Now we are seeing 80 or 90 as far as patients in the hospital with COVID, so you can see a definite uptick of activity.”
And Dr. Ryu said misconceptions about who gets the virus are still a problem, “I think there is a belief out there that most of these patients are nursing home patients. In fact, only 15 to 20 percent of our hospitalized patients have been nursing home patients.”
