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A Florida hospital is temporarily shutting down its labor and delivery unit due to themassive surge of COVID-19 cases in the area, which has sickened much of the staff.
Holy Cross Health in Fort Lauderdale announced Sunday that “in the best interest of patient safety,” they’ve decided to close the labor and delivery unit as “people are out sick due to the surge in COVID cases,” Holy Cross spokesperson Christine Walkertold NBC Miami.
“Due to the COVID-19 surge, Holy Cross Health has reached critical staffing levels in Labor and Delivery,” the hospitalsaid on their website. “In the best interest of patient safety, the Labor and Delivery unit is on diversion until further notice. The NICU and Post-Partum remain open.”
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“I would say to the pregnant women in the community not to forego any medical care that you have scheduled,” Dr. Joshua Lenchus, Chief Medical Officer at Broward Health, told NBC Miami. “There are other hospitals that are out there. We have absolutely set aside competition during COVID-19. This is about caring for our community collectively.”
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With the highly contagious omicron variant spreading around the U.S., cases are at their highest levels of the entire pandemic, and the country reported a record 1,017,376 new infections on Monday (though many of those are likely due to reporting lags over the New Year holiday).
Florida in particular has one of the highest case rates in the country with around 43,168 new infections a day, an increase of 511% in the last two weeks,according toThe New York Times. And while omicron appears to produce a milder illness, especially for those vaccinated and boosted, Florida is lagging in their vaccination rate, with 63% of the population fully vaccinated, causing hospitalizations to rise. As of Jan. 4, Florida is seeing around 5,103 people hospitalized with COVID-19 a day, an increase of 222% in the last two weeks.
As information about thecoronavirus pandemicrapidly changes, PEOPLE is committed to providing the most recent data in our coverage. Some of the information in this story may have changed after publication. For the latest on COVID-19, readers are encouraged to use online resources from theCDC,WHOandlocal public health departments.PEOPLE has partnered with GoFundMeto raise money for the COVID-19 Relief Fund, a GoFundMe.org fundraiser to support everything from frontline responders to families in need, as well as organizations helping communities. For more information or to donate, clickhere.
source: people.com
