Spokane has crossed the four thousand mark in confirmed coronavirus cases over the last four months, but there may be room for optimism.
After a record high 145 cases reported on Friday, the health district reported 187 positive tests from Saturday-through-Monday, an average of about 60 a day. That’s an improvement over the average daily counts for the last four weeks or so.
But there is one trend for concern: the slow, continued growth in the number of people hospitalized for Covid. The health district reported 72 people receiving care, 44 of those Spokane County residents.
While the hospitals are handling that demand for now, within a couple of months, they’ll also be seeing people sickened by the flu. Dr. Deborah Wiser is the chief clinical officer at CHAS.
“It’s very year-to-year dependent," said Dr. Deborah Wiser, the chief clinical officer at CHAS. "A couple of years ago we had a much more intense flu season where some hospitals were really running out of ICU beds for influenza. It’s really difficult to be able to determine what’s going to happen in Covid world because, hopefully, people are physically distancing more and, hopefully, will get more influenza shots.”
Wiser urged people, especially those who have never sought flu shots, to do so this year, in part to ease the potential burden on the health care system.