CARENCRO — Front-line workers amid the pandemic are sharing how this third wave of Covid-19 is impacting Acadiana. The message, it's about to get even worse. Tuesday, health care leaders talked about their concerns in Acadiana where hospitals are approaching capacity.
"Our ICU is currently full," Dr. Henry Kaufman with Our Lady Of Lourde's said. "We have overflowed into a secondary ICU area. We're currently working on overflowing into a 3rd ICU area."
He added, "hospitalizations of Covid positive patients at Lourdes hospital have tripled in the last 2 weeks. "
During a round table in Carencro, Dr. Kaufman said this third wave is a direct result of activities and large gatherings during Halloween. They are now anticipating another surge from Thanksgiving.
"We're going to see another surge in 10 or 14 days," Dr. Kaufman said. "Already hospitals are full at this time of year because other diseases and respiratory illness."
Acadian ambulance is also seeing those impacts. Acadian Ambulance Chief Medical Officer Dr. Charles Burnell said 10 percent of patients they've transported are known Covid cases.
"We knew we were in trouble when we started seeing an uptick," Dr. Burnell said. "Since Halloween we had a 55% increase in the number of known Covid patients we transported."
At Lourdes doctors say they are also starting to see how Covid-19 is impacting survivors, even after they're discharged from the hospital.
"There's something called long Covid," Dr.Kaufman said. "Which is a long term inflammatory response. We're starting to see that in some at risk and vulnerable individuals. I think we're likely going to have a lot of data develop over the coming years. In regards to how this is affecting people long term. I think there are a large number of people who have had serious Covid illness that this is going to take years, if not decades off of their life."
Now leaders are once again calling for the public to do their part by following basic safety protocols to flatten the curve once again.
