The Winslow City Council received a quarterly report from the Little Colorado Medical Center (LCMC) during their meeting last week. Christy Ross gave the report for the facility in which she updated the council on the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Overall, there is great news to report. Finally, after two years cases have significantly decreased in the U.S., Arizona and locally. If you look at the data, we had three pretty significant waves since March 2020. The last one, that we just recovered from in the Omicron variant had a ton of cases. Which, in a way, was good news because we ended up getting, I think, a herd immunity through this more transmissible but less deadly variant.
She noted that hospitalizations have significantly decreased as well in the U.S., Arizona and at LCMC. “There are very few COVID hospitalizations happening right now. In fact, it’s the lowest it has been during the pandemic. More great news is the decrease in deaths across the board as well.”
She stated that as COVID has decreased, LCMC is now allowing visitors. “We are limiting it to adults, just like we do during a flu season, and we ask that visitors are asymptomatic but we are not testing anyone ahead of time. We are still wearing masks for all staff and visitors in common areas per the CDC suggestions.”
The clinic does continue to do COVID testing, but they are experiencing a very low number of requests for tests.
According to Ross, “The surgeons made a decision that you don’t need to be tested prior to surgery unless you are symptomatic. There are vaccines available; call the clinic for vaccine appointments.”
Moving out of COVID response to health care after-affects including behavioral and mental health. “We end up with a lot of patients in our emergency department waiting for a bed in a behavioral health facility. So, we are working hard on being able to provide a telemedicine option for those patients to contact a provider.”
