Miami Valley Hospital seeing more COVID-19 patients, but no spike in admissions, officials say

DAYTON — Even as Gov. Mike DeWine ranked Montgomery County among Ohio’s hottest spots for COVID-19 community spread on the state’s new alert system, Miami Valley Hospital officials told News Center 7 they have yet to see a major spike in coronavirus hospital admissions.

“What we have seen in the hospitals is a very small increase in the number of COVID patients, that’s really not impacting operations significantly at all,” Dr. Roberto Colon, associate chief medical officer at Miami Valley Hospital, said Thursday.

Dr. Colon noted the hospital has seen a decline in the severity of COVID-19 patients, perhaps because of the median age for patients lowering in recent weeks.

“The majority of patients that are coming in with COVID are not ICU-level care. And they’re not requiring ventilators,” he said.

Still, DeWine cautioned residents in Dayton and surrounding areas to remain vigilant about stopping the spread of the virus, noting that unlike in some parts of Ohio, the vast majority of coronavirus spread in Montgomery County is happening out in the community, as opposed to inside congregate care settings such as nursing homes and jails.

DeWine also cautioned, as a whole, that the region has in fact seen a spike in coronavirus hospitalizations.

“Here (in Montgomery County) we’ve seen average daily visits to the E.R. more than double. Outpatient visits have more than quadrupled,” DeWine said.

Monday, Kettering Health Network officials told WHIO they have seen a “substantial increase” in COVID-19 patients in the last two-plus weeks, noting sick patients showing up to the hospital and some requiring ventilators.

Dr. Jeffrey Weinstein, chief quality officer for Kettering and Sycamore Medical Centers, said Thursday, “While we have seen an increase in COVID-19 patients hospitalized across Kettering Health Network during the last two weeks, the daily rate has stabilized. We have not seen any change in the severity of illness.”

The spike in COVID-19 cases can be seen at the testing site at UD Arena, open since March. Several weeks ago, Premier Health officials said they were seeing 100 to 130 patients per day. In the last 10 days, that number has grown to more than 300, sometimes resulting in hour-long waits for a test at peak hours.

Nick Lair, vice president of health lab services at Premier Health, told News Center 7 on Thursday that while the site does continue to see sick patients, a great number of patients are there to get tested as a result of increased contact tracing by Public Health - Dayton & Montgomery County; something seen as a key in fighting the pandemic in the coming months.

“The tracing methodology is really working, and that’s probably one of the reasons – and probably the largest reason why the volume is up a lot,” Lair said.

Premier Health officials said testing results are generally being returned within one to two business days.

© 2020 Cox Media Group