Physicians join state officials in urging public to wear masks indoors

“Masking works,” said Wendy Hasson, M.D., medical director of the pediatric intensive care unit at Randall Children’s Hospital at Legacy Emanuel. “Anytime you have to go to an indoor crowded area during this surge, if you and your child can wear a mask, that will help protect the (health care) resources.”

Hasson was one of three clinicians who joined Dean Sidelinger, M.D., M.S.Ed., health officer and state epidemiologist at Oregon Health Authority, for OHA’s monthly COVID-19 media briefing.

Sidelinger kicked off the briefing by calling the situation facing Oregon’s hospitals “extremely serious.”

“Today, more hospitals are reaching a point of crisis in their adult bed capacity just as our pediatric hospitals moved to crisis care standards in the past two weeks,” he said. “The combination of surging flu, RSV and COVID-19 cases is pushing hospitals past their current ICU bed capacity, which never happened during the darkest days of the COVID-19 pandemic in Oregon.”

According to Sidelinger, Oregon saw an almost five-fold increase in RSV-associated hospitalizations in Oregon’s children between Oct. 23 and Nov. 13. Although RSV-associated hospitalizations peaked during the week ending Nov. 19, rates of hospitalization remain higher than during any previously recorded peak.

Influenza cases doubled each week for five consecutive weeks, with test percent positivity jumping from 1% to 30% between Oct. 18 and Nov. 28. That’s led to a rapid rise in influenza hospitalizations since late October, particularly among people 65 and older, whose hospitalization rate has seen a 10-fold increase.

This year’s influenza season began earlier than normal, with high levels of the virus seen across the country, Sidelinger said.

“We do expect flu activity to maintain its upward trajectory into the winter, particularly as the holiday season and gatherings with loved ones continue,” he said.

And the COVID-19 pandemic clearly “is not over,” Sidelinger explained, as demonstrated by significant increases of cases of the virus this season. Percent positivity and COVID-19 levels in wastewater have risen, signaling increased community spread and spurring a 48% increase in the number of COVID-19-positive patients in hospitals in the past month. ICU hospitalizations have also gone up 30%, but the number of COVID-19 deaths has remained flat.

“Now is not the time to go to crowded indoor places like indoor birthday parties, play places, restaurants, grocery stores,” Hasson said. In addition to avoiding crowded indoor spaces, Moreno explained, people can help reduce the pressure on hospitals by taking care of themselves and others.

“Get immunized for influenza. Get your booster for COVID. It is not too late. Please get immunized. And don’t gather if you’re sick, even just a little sick. Really, that protects other people.”

Hasson noted that she has admitted many patients over the last two weeks with the flu, but that she has “not admitted a single patient who has received a flu vaccine.”

“Flu vaccines work. They keep kids out of the hospital, and I cannot stress this enough,” she said.