MILWAUKEE — COVID-19 hospitalizations in Wisconsin are at their highest level since January of 2021 when the vaccine was just being rolled out.
Monday’s numbers from the Wisconsin Hospital Association show 1,714 people are in the hospital with the virus across the state, and 443 of them are in the Intensive Care unit.
Dr. Eric Siegal is an Intensive Care Physician at Aurora St. Luke’s on Milwaukee’s south side. He talked candidly with TMJ4 News in September when the numbers of patients was high, and says now it is just as bad or even worse.
“There are no miracle drugs that have come out since we last talked, there are no new interventions that are making these patients get better faster. We know that once someone gets COVID and gets sick and ends up in the ICU, it is going to be a very long siege and if they survive it is going to take weeks” said Dr. Siegal.
Wisconsin Hospital Association CEO Eric Borgerding says the numbers are troubling.
“There’s just no question that this is not slowing down. In Wisconsin, in fact, it’s accelerating at a vary rapid and precipitous rate. My gosh if we didn’t have the vaccine, I’m not sure what the situation would be right now” says Borgerding.
Borgerding says the state is seeing the effects of the Delta variant of COVID-19 and hasn’t seen the effects yet of the new Omicron variant, which is believed to spread faster, but could be less deadly.
Both men point to the vaccine as the way to bring the number of patients down.
“An enormously high percent of our population being effectively vaccinated," Dr. Siegal said. "Until that happens we will just deal with wave after wave after wave and variant after variant.”