At nearly 23,000, Jackson County has the largest number of adults in Oregon who need to receive shots in order to reach the state’s goal of 80% vaccination. Other counties with the most people still needing shots to reach that goal include Douglas, Josephine and Klamath Counties.
“With that many people unprotected, our hospitals in Region 5 could be hit even harder than everybody else’s,” said Jackson County Medical Director Jim Shames, referring to Jackson and Josephine counties.
Last summer, COVID-19 cases overwhelmed hospitals in Southern Oregon. Now, Shames is worried the same thing will happen again with the significantly more contagious omicron variant of the virus.
“I think with such a large, unvaccinated patient population, we are really worried what this will look like, knowing how affected we were by the delta surge,” said Amanda Kotler, the vice president of nursing at Asante Rogue Regional Medical Center in Medford. “Even a fraction of those patients coming in will further strain already strained resources.”
Right now, the Asante system has limited space because of the many procedures patients put off over the past year, Kotler said, which they’re now trying to make up for.
“I think a really important point is just considering the collateral damage that we’re still working through from the initial surge,” she said. “What does that look like with another surge layered on top of that?”
With this new variant, Kotler is making surge planning contingency plans like using open, field-hospital-style wards and converting units that are designed for maternal health or outpatient wound care to house COVID-19 patients.
The omicron variant can spread far more easily than the original coronavirus from early 2020, Shames said, and we need to adapt our precautions.
“We’ve got to up our game in terms of protecting ourselves,” he said.