CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Although the Charleston Area Medical Center saw a jump in Covid 19 patients in recent days, it’s nothing the hospital considers unmanageable. Dale Witte, spokesman for the CAMC Health Systems ,noted the recent rise in case numbers is minimal compared to earlier in the year.
“Our rise in Covid patients in the last couple of weeks is only about a fourth of our peak level in the early days of January,” Witte explained.
The system of four hospitals averaged over 100 patients a day in January. Over time, those case numbers continued to fall until a couple of weeks ago when the rise started. Now there are roughly 25 Covid patients across the system’s four operations daily.
Witte added they’ve evolved with the virus in their approach to dealing with it. A year ago, CAMC operated a number of drive-thru testing clinics. One was at the Chesterfield Lab Works location and it’s still there today, but there, but other drive-thru testing centers at CAMC Teays Valley and CAMC Women’s and Children’s Hospital have since been discontinued. Patients who fear they may have contracted the virus can go through the outdoor, drive-thru facility in Charleston just in case. Otherwise, Witte said the need for testing had dropped dramatically.
CAMC has used its personnel to help the local health departments in Kanawha and Putnam County with the ongoing vaccination work. The pandemic spurred the hospital toward development of a mobile unit to take the resources on the road to other counties and more rural locations in southern West Virginia. The mobile unit is now being built and should be ready in August..
“Our permanent mobile unit is being built. In the meantime, we’ve rented one and we’re working with some county health departments to see if we can assist with some focused vaccination clinics with them,” he said.