Florida hospital CEOs met Aug. 4 in a virtual roundtable led by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to talk about whether the COVID-19 vaccines are effective and the biggest challenges CEOs are facing, the Aug. 4 Sun-Sentinel said.
"Vaccinations absolutely have made a difference," said George Ralls, MD, chief medical officer of Orlando (Fla.) Health. "We did see a significant flip in the percentage of patients over 65. For this current wave, about 55 percent of our inpatients are between 40 and 64 years old."
Mr. DeSantis asked hospital leaders if the COVID-19 vaccine is effective. The Republican governor reported Aug. 4 that Florida had about 25,000 reports of breakthrough COVID-19 cases in fully vaccinated people. That accounts for about 0.2 percent of the nearly 10.6 million Floridians who were fully vaccinated as of Aug. 5.
"A vast majority of those vaccinated individuals in our hospital are folks who got COVID but end up hospitalized because they are immunosuppressed anyway," said John Couris, CEO of Tampa (Fla.) General.
The vaccine is highly effective, Dr. Ralls said.
"What we keep seeing over and over are cases where if the person had the vaccine, they never would have made it to the hospital," Dr. Ralls said. "They might have been sick. They might have developed symptoms, but the protective effect of the vaccine is what was missing."
Dr. Ralls said fully vaccinated people infected with COVID-19 are in a better situation than if they had not gotten vaccinated.
Shane Strum, CEO of Fort Lauderdale, Fla.-based Broward Health, said that while his health system has admitted an increasing number of COVID-19 patients, they only make up 20 percent of admissions.
Mr. Strum said physicians at Broward Heath believe the delta variant is more infectious, but it's not necessarily causing more severe illnesses. The average length of stay for vaccinated patients is two days compared with seven for unvaccinated patients.
With rising COVID-19 cases, Florida's hospital CEOs told Mr. DeSantis their biggest challenge is having enough staff to care for COVID-19 patients and the flood of other sick patients coming to their emergency departments. Some are having to bring in temporary nurses from staffing agencies, the report said.