Auburn ER doctor: South King County hospitals ‘already near 100% capacity’ as COVID cases rise
Nov 11, 2020, 10:54 AM | Updated: Oct 3, 2024, 7:57 am
A team of medical workers at Harborview in Seattle. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson)
(AP Photo/Elaine Thompson)
Washington state health officials continue to express concerns over a sizable uptick in new COVID cases. In the midst of that, local hospitals are already feeling the strain, according to Auburn ER doctor Stephen Anderson.
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Daily new cases in Washington have been at their highest since the start of the pandemic with few signs of slowing.
“The next wave is definitely here, and it’s larger than the first wave,” Dr. Anderson told KIRO Radio’s Dave Ross and Aaron Granillo. “What we saw in New York City, we’re now seeing in Iowa and Utah. Hospitals statewide there have run out of beds.”
“Hospitals in South King County where I work are already functioning near 100% capacity on a daily basis,” he added.
Moving forward, Anderson expects that the combination of the holiday season, cold weather continuing to drive people indoors, and rising cases will strain hospital resources across the region.
That’s especially prominent in South King County among communities of color.
“This disease is racist,” he said. “It’s not genetic, but there’s a horrifying disparity between racial demographics, mostly due to longstanding variations in policies and economics.”
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That’s driven by a variety of socioeconomic factors, including the fact that people of color “live in closer proximity,” they often have jobs in the service industry that don’t provide the ability to work from home, and they have “decreased access to health care” to go along with several risk factors like chronic lung conditions, obesity, hypertension, and diabetes.
“There’s a tenfold difference in the incidents of COVID in Pacific Islanders over Caucasians, sixfold in Hispanic, fourfold in Blacks,” Dr. Anderson noted. “So given the fact that that population has higher incidents in South King County, it’s why that we’re seeing a lot of disparities down in my neck of the woods.”
You can listen to Dave Ross and Aaron Granillo’s full interview with Dr. Anderson on KIRO Radio’s COVID-19 podcast here.
