(WWJ) -- Officials with the Henry Ford Health System say they’re seeing a steady increase of patients hospitalized with COVID-19, putting their hospitals at 95% capacity levels.
WWJ Health Reporter Dr. Deanna Lites reports that COVID-19 hospitalizations have risen by 24% over the past two weeks statewide.
Dr. Dennis Cunningham, Medical Director of Infection Control and Prevention for Henry Ford, says as of Thursday morning, HFHS had 181 people hospitalized with the coronavirus -- up from 144 two weeks ago.
Cunningham and other health officials still say the best way to be protected from the virus is receiving the COVID-19 vaccine.
“We’re tracking the inpatients every day who have COVID-19 and I can tell you, we’re not seeing vaccinated people, really, unless they have an underlying problem with their immune system, such as cancer, or perhaps they had an organ transplant,” Cunningham said during a HFHS COVID-19 briefing Thursday.
“I’m not seeing healthy, vaccinated people in the hospital, and certainly not seeing them in the intensive care unit or on a breathing machine,” he said.
As of Tuesday, about 68% of vaccine-eligible Michiganders have received at least one dose of the vaccine, with about 2.5 million people remaining unvaccinated, according to the state’s COVID-19 vaccine dashboard.
As far as getting a "crisis point," Cunningham says Henry Ford is "not there," but that's why the vaccine is so important.
"Because if we get a big flu outbreak at the same time as these COVID cases, it’s gonna put more stress on the hospitals," Cunningham said. "There’s certainly parts of the country where they’ve been hit much harder than us, so that’s why we’re asking people to just wear the masks. Get the vaccine.”
Many school districts across the state have seen a rise in COVID-19 outbreaks in recent weeks, especially in Macomb County, where health officials reported 25 new outbreaks earlier this week.
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