Dr. Sukhjit Dhillon, an emergency medicine physician at UCSF Fresno, says she is concerned that the recent increase in COVID-19 cases will once again overwhelm hospital emergency rooms. New hospital admissions due to COVID-19 have increased in Fresno County by 71 percent in the past week, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. More and more people are coming in with respiratory symptoms likely due to the Delta variant of the coronavirus, she says. Most are unvaccinated. “And when you ask them why they didn’t get vaccinated, usually the most common answer is ‘I just didn’t get around to it’ or ‘my family doesn’t believe in vaccines,’” Dhillon says. And there’s been an increase in staff quarantining due to illness or exposure. According to Community Medical Centers’ dashboard, as of August 4, 142 staff were self isolating. That’s compared to 84 staff two weeks ago, a 69 percent increase. It’s another strain on the system, Dhillon says. “We end up having staff
https://www.kvpr.org/sites/kvpr/files/styles/big_story/public/202108/dr._dhillon__2__0.jpg