MICHIGAN — On Thursday, Spectrum Health announced that after 83 days, they have been able to change their status from red to yellow.
“I'm happy to report that after 83 days, since mid-November, we've been in red status and after 83 days, officially, as of today, we are going to yellow status.” Dr. Darryl Elmouchi of Spectrum Health said. “That means that our operations while they're still interrupted, meaning that we still have staffing shortages, a lot of patients with COVID, and so forth, things are definitely getting better.”
The statuses are an internal measurement of the seriousness of COVID-19 as there are no official Center for Disease Control guidelines for hospital or health system status Elmouchi reports.
“I want to remind you that these statuses, they're not official, there's no CDC guide to a hospital or health system status. These are internal measures. And we are saying very officially to our teams, that things are getting better, but they are by no means normal, the pandemic sadly, is not over.” Elmouchi said. “But we are very hopeful, as we've talked about before, that we're steadily shifting into a different phase of the pandemic, where things are more manageable.”
In December of 2021 COVID-19 cases were at their peak which was over 500. As of Feb. 9, 2022, cases are below 300 according Elmouchi reports.
Despite the decrease in cases overall, there has been a rise in cases of COVID-19 in children.
“… over the last probably three weeks, we've seen a peak at Helen DeVos Children's Hospital in terms of the number of kids admitted who have COVID-19, we peaked in the early 30s, we're still in the mid 20s. And for most of the pandemic, we were in the single the low double digits.” Elmouchi explained. “And even during the Delta surge, I don't think we really cracked 20. So we are definitely seeing more kids and kids who are quite ill on the ventilator and so forth with COVID Hoping that gets better soon.”
The full interview can be watched below.
Certain visitor restrictions remain in place for Spectrum, including only 1 visitor per day for adult patients. For more information on the current rules, visit Spectrum's site.
