Mount Nittany Medical Center continues to have elevated numbers of COVID inpatients

January 07, 2022
COVID-19
5 min read

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Will provide limited surgical services requiring inpatient stay and full endoscopy services beginning January 10th

As we end the first week of 2022, Mount Nittany Medical Center is caring for 43 COVID-19 inpatients ranging in age from 25 to 90. Our average daily census of COVID positive inpatients in December 2021 was 57 and the total number of cases for December was 236.

The Medical Center continues to monitor the local and regional surge in COVID-19 cases and make real time operational adjustments to meet patient demand. Elective surgeries requiring a one-night stay or more will resume on a limited basis on January 10. Endoscopy procedures will return in full on January 10. While some services are reopening, community members may continue to experience longer than normal wait times when using the emergency department.

Upendra Thaker, MD, chief medical officer, Mount Nittany Medical Center, asks community members to take action to limit community spread.

“We are coming out from the holiday period, and we do expect case numbers to remain elevated in the coming weeks and potentially increase even more,” Thaker said. “Schools and universities are returning from winter break which will likely lead to continued community spread.”

Preliminary data shows that healthy adults often have less severe illness when infected with Omicron. However, individuals with higher rates of comorbid health conditions like obesity, heart disease, and diabetes could experience more severe illness, hospitalization, or even death from this COVID-19 variant. Getting vaccinated is key to reducing the severity of illness.

The physicians, nurses and staff at Mount Nittany Health ask the community to continue precautions to slow the surge of the virus.

  • Avoid large indoor gatherings.
  • Wear a mask.
  • Wash your hands.
  • Get vaccinated.
  • If you are already vaccinated, get a booster shot, and continue to wear a mask if spending time in crowded indoor public spaces.

If you experience any symptoms like fever, cough, chills, scratchy throat, body aches, headaches and/or loss of taste or smell, seek testing and isolate yourself from others.

Centre Region Vaccination Opportunities

Mount Nittany Health continues to offer COVID vaccination opportunities for community members. Please visit our website to register for a Pfizer BioNTech vaccine or booster dose. Importantly, if you are experiencing COVID-19 symptoms, or believe you have been exposed to someone who is COVID positive, then please isolate yourself from others and seek testing. Visit our patient information page to learn more. The CDC recently updated its recommendation for booster doses of the Pfizer vaccine.

Mount Nittany Health Employee Vaccination Requirement

“The safety of our staff, patients and community continues to be Mount Nittany Health’s top priority,” said Amy Trithart, chief human resources officer. “We intend to be in compliance with the current OSHA and CMS requirements for healthcare workers by the appropriate deadlines and are closely monitoring any potential additional changes to the requirements.  As of today, those requirements state that employees be fully vaccinated or granted a medical or religious accommodation by February 28th. Full compliance includes a combination of vaccination, accommodation, wearing personal protective equipment and COVID testing. Our compliance rate across the health system already is well over 90%, and is steadily increasing. We will continue to monitor any developments with respect to the federal requirements.” 

COVID Testing

The Department of Health is offering no-cost COVID-19 testing in Centre County at the Centre County Recycling & Refuse Authority at 253 Transfer Road in State College. The site will be open 10:00 am – 7:00 pm Tuesday through Saturday. Anyone seeking testing, regardless of age or residency, may use this site. You can also find additional testing sites on the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services website.

Mount Nittany Medical Center Visitation

The current visitation policy allows one designated visitor per patient, per day, between the visiting hours of 2:00 – 6:00 pm daily. The complete visitation guidelines are on the patient information page of mountnittany.org.

Thank your local healthcare workers

Community members are joining Mount Nittany Health at courageousatheart.org in thanking our healthcare workers who continue working tirelessly on the frontlines through the COVID-19 pandemic. Please feel free to add your own well wishes.

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