Phoebe’s Scott Steiner: We’re now facing COVID-21

ALBANY — The words from Phoebe Putney Health System President/CEO Scott Steiner have an ominous ring: “We are now seeing COVID-21.”

Steiner made the comment Tuesday while talking about the surge in COVID patients at Phoebe facilities. A count that was at seven 3 1/2 weeks ago is now at 81, 72 at Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital in Albany and nine at Phoebe Sumter Medical Center in Americus.

The hospital had reported 42 COVID patients last week, but, as Steiner noted, “We had 18 admissions yesterday alone.

“You’d have to back a ways, probably back to 2020 to find a day when we had that many admissions. Let’s face it: COVID-19 has mutated.”

Steiner said “only one or two health care facilities in Georgia have the capacity to test for the delta variant” of COVID, which the CDC says is responsible for most of the new cases that are spreading across the nation. But, he noted, there is no doubt the variant is responsible for the rise in cases locally.

And, the health system CEO laments, there was a window of opportunity to stop COVID in its tracks.

“You can look on (Phoebe employees’) faces and see the disappointment,” Steiner said. “But we’re going to get through this, just like we did the first wave. The professionals at Phoebe are as much warriors now as they were in the beginning.

“It is disheartening, though, to know that we could have stopped COVID if enough people had been vaccinated. When this first started, there was nothing we could do but wash our hands, socially distance and wear masks around others. But we got this vaccine; there was something we could do. The frustration many are feeling is obvious; they’re tired (of the virus) and they’re pissed off. We had that window of six months. … We could have buried this thing.”

The good news, Steiner said, is that the vaccine developed to fight COVID-19 is still the best defense against the delta variant.

“All you have to do is look at the numbers across the nation,” he said. “Here, 82% of the people who have been hospitalized within our system are unvaccinated. Of those in the ICU, 90% are unvaccinated.

“You hear people saying things like ‘the vaccine is not perfect.’ No, it’s not, and no one ever said it was. But until there is a vaccine that defends against this mutated strain of the virus, this is the best protection we have. And, I can attest, there is not one documented or true case of a mask making anyone sick or killing anyone or putting anyone in the hospital. We just have to go back to taking care of ourselves by following those guidelines we all now know so well.”

File Photo: Carlton Fletcher