“Our community is in the midst of a surge from a mix of Delta variant infections and Omicron variant infections, the latter strain having a much shorter doubling time and infection rate,” said Guy Karrik, manager of media relations and communications at St. Elizabeth. “At the conclusion of the holiday season and people gathering, we are expecting to see incidence rates increase further in our region over the next few weeks.”
A spokesperson with TriHealth said it is doing the same, but did not provide a timeline for how long they expect to delay procedures.
“To keep hospital beds available during this COVID surge, we are making operational changes such as limiting elective surgeries and procedures that require hospital admissions and keeping patients longer in the post-anesthesia care units to avoid taking up patient beds needed for care,” said Matt Mattingly, senior public relations consultant with TriHealth.
On Monday, there were 18,942 COVID-19 cases reported in Ohio and 350 new hospitalizations reported in the last 24 hours.
WCPO is a content partner of the Journal-News.
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