As Southeast Michigan health systems scramble to find beds and ventilators for very sick patients with the deadly coronavirus, health officials in Michigan said Wednesday that 19 more people died, pushing the state total to 43.
In Michigan, there were 507 new positive COVID-19 cases disclosed Wednesday, a 28 percent increase to total 2,295 people, according to the state Department of Health and Human Services.
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer warned late Wednesday night that the surge of patients in metro Detroit hospitals would get worse.
“We’re at the beginning of the curve — we’re nowhere near the apex,” Whitmer said in an interview on MSNBC. “And so it is a dire situation right now. That’s why we’re calling on our residents to do their part by staying at home.”
Over the past week, Michigan has risen to become the state with the fifth-highest number of coronavirus cases, behind New York with more than 25,665 cases and 218 deaths, New Jersey, California and Washington state.
Nationally, positive COVID-19 cases totaled 53,852 people with 728 deaths, according to the latest New York Times figures. The U.S. is now the No. 3 country in the world for confirmed coronavirus cases, behind China with 81,000 and Italy with 69,000 cases.
Worldwide, positive COVID-19 cases total more than 425,000 with nearly 19,000 deaths, including 6,800 in Italy and 3,200 in China.How health systems are faring
Officials for six-hospital Henry Ford Health System in Detroit and eight-hospital Beaumont Health based in Southfield spoke during separate news conferences Wednesday about the large surge in COVID-19 patients and how they are adjusting their delivery systems to handle the influx.
Bob Riney, Henry Ford’s president of health care operations and COO, said the system is nearing capacity for treating coronavirus patients within its 2,400 acute-care beds.
The health system has 304 COVID-19 positive inpatients and an additional 107 hospitalized and awaiting test results, Riney said.
Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit and Henry Ford West Bloomfield Hospital are already nearly maxed out for beds with ventilators and those in intensive care units, said Betty Chu, M.D., Henry Ford’s associate chief clinical officer and chief quality officer.
At Beaumont, CEO John Fox said the health system is moving ventilators between hospitals to make sure the sickest patients are covered.
“Last night, we converted two units of Royal Oak to COVID units, and that hospital now has nine dedicated to COVID-19 patients. We will be converting our ORs to ICUs,” Fox said.
Fox said he told Whitmer earlier in the day that some hospitals have more COVID-19 patients than others, and hospitals need to share the load in an organized way.
“We have to get load balancing implemented across the system,” Fox said. “We can’t have people drive by a hospital that may have 10 percent capacity more for ventilators or other things — COVID patient needs — and then pull into an ER of a hospital that’s super-saturated.”
Fox said the state needs to use its powers to coordinate care across the eight medical regions in the state.
“That coordination is critical. It exists in many other industrialized countries that have their health care more under government control,” Fox said.
Fox said Wednesday that Beaumont’s system has 540 patients with COVID-19 with expectation of reaching 600 patients by the end of that day. There were an additional 200 suspected patients with coronavirus with pending test results.
“We are not at capacity yet,” said Fox, adding that Beaumont is growing at a rate of 100 coronavirus patients each day. “We are doing all sorts of things to create capacity.”Henry Ford converts
Riney said the Henry Ford system is converting space at several hospitals, surgery and medical centers to step-down units for noninfected patients to keep very sick patients in place.
Many hospitals in Southeast Michigan, including eight-hospital Beaumont Health, have said they are nearly at bed capacity the past several days due to the surge in COVID-19 positive patients as the virus spreads through the community.
Riney said two floors at Fairlane Medical Center in Dearborn have been converted into a 15-bed unit for patients without COVID-19. He said the unit will act as overflow for Henry Ford hospitals and the emergency department at Fairlane.
“Henry Ford Hospital is caring for the majority of (the system’s) COVID-19 patients,” said Riney, adding that staff from other closed surgery centers and hospitals with lower volume have been transferred to support health care workers in Detroit.
At Henry Ford Macomb Hospital in Clinton Township, Riney said, eight operating rooms have been converted to a 16-bed COVID-19 unit. Henry Ford Wyandotte Hospital has converted its surgical unit and doubled its ICU capacity to 32 from 18 beds.
“All time-sensitive surgeries have been postponed,” said Riney, adding that some advanced procedures such as neurosurgery have been relocated to the West Bloomfield hospital.
Overall, Henry Ford has 591 hospitalized patients in some form of isolation, either testing positive, awaiting test results or showing COVID-19 symptoms and under observation.
“We believe we are in the early phase and will see a significant increase in numbers,” Riney said.
Chu said Michigan is still on the “front end” of the coronavirus pandemic. She predicted it would remain strong past Easter, April 12, when President Donald Trump said he hoped America would get back to normal.
At Beaumont, Fox said additional personal protective equipment has arrived.
“We have gotten N95 masks and other personal protective equipment from the national stockpile but it’s also versions of the equipment employees have never seen before … so it’s an orientation issue,” he said.
Another orientation issue is the extent to which Beaumont is converting its operation from elective procedures to COVID-19 uses. So far, Beaumont has eliminated 80 percent of elective surgeries, officials said.
Fox said a large part of its operations also have been converted into facilities to screen, diagnose and treat the coronavirus.
“It’s been a lightning speed endeavor for all of us … it’s very much high-wire,” Fox said.
While elderly with chronic diseases are at a higher risk, Fox said Beaumont doctors are seeing “plenty of 40- to 50-year-olds also succumbing to the virus.”
Beaumont has treated just two pediatric patients so far.
Susan Grant, R.N., executive vice president and chief nursing officer, said Beaumont is testing about 400 people per day, but screening of high-priority patients is being conducted.
Of the 1,000 total people who have tested positive, about half have been hospitalized.State results detailed
Detroit continues to test the most positive COVID-19 cases with 705 with 12 deaths, followed by Wayne County with 417 positive cases with nine deaths, Oakland County with 543 positive cases with 10 deaths, up from four; Macomb County with 281 positives with seven deaths, up from three; and Washtenaw County with 72 positives and three deaths, according to the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services.
Kent County now has 36 positive coronavirus cases with one death. COVID-19 cases are present in 41 of the state’s 82 counties, with Southeast Michigan having the most by far.
The percentage of positive cases is 51 percent male and 49 percent female, a ratio that has fluctuated only slightly over the past week.
Some 38 percent of positive cases are people younger than 49, which is lower than 42 percent on Monday, although emergency room doctors say the number of patients aged 20-40 with COVID-19 symptoms is higher than seasonal flu and of concern because some are very sick.
— Crain’s Detroit Business reporter Kurt Nagl and Senior Editor Chad Livengood contributed to this report.
