NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — Rex Degner, M.D., pathologist with Hutchinson Regional Healthcare System, says there is a little bit more COVID-19 out in the community, judging by hospitalizations, but those being hospitalized aren't getting as sick.
"I think we are seeing some increased COVID in the community, as well as we're seeing a small uptick in numbers in the hospital itself," Degner said Tuesday. "We've been running for several months at zero to two patients with COVID in the hospital. Recently, we've popped up to five to seven patients at any one time in the hospital. It's starting to trend back down a little bit. I think, the important thing I want to say about that is, though, these patients that are in the hospital with COVID, that have a positive COVID test, have not been in the intensive care unit, they have not been on respirators, they've been in only a day or so and then gone back home, which is unlike earlier in the pandemic."
Hutchinson Regional does not track which COVID variant someone has come down with.
"We continue to forward information to the state," Degner said. "They are the ones that are responsible, through the state lab or on to the CDC, of tracking which variants are out there. I don't have the information right now of what variant is actually here in the community, although the presumption is it's the new BA.5 that's spreading through the rest of the country, is probably here as well."
It's doing what viruses typically do, which is get more people infected, but fewer with serious illness.
"We have to remember that the COVID virus is very closely related to the common cold virus," Degner said. "That's been around with us forever, it continues to mutate. That's why we don't have a vaccine for the common cold, or a cure for it. It's something you get, it's relatively mild and goes away. COVID appears to be going that direction. Now, that's not to say that at some point, another variant pops up that becomes much more virulent, much worse symptoms, but right now, that's not what we're seeing."
Degner said that some of the cases they are seeing are people who come to the hospital for something else and test positive, so they are in the hospital with COVID, but not necessarily because of it.