By TOMMY REZAC
St. Joseph Post
The number of patients hospitalized with COVID-19 continues to fall in the Mosaic Life Care system - just as the vaccine gets rolled out to the public.
Mosaic reported 36 COVID patients on Saturday - the lowest total in months. There are 34 patients in the St. Joseph, and one in both Maryville and Albany.
Mosaic Chief Quality Officer, Dr. Edward Kammerer, says the rollout of the vaccine is critical, but social distancing and mask wearing are still the best ways to combat the virus and keep hospitals from being overwhelmed.
"People are doing better at wearing their masks," Kammerer said. "They're using hand hygiene and social distancing better than they have. That's important. That's still the foundation. However, as of today, we now have the entire spectrum of treatment available."
Mosaic has started distributing vaccine to members of the public who are in Phase 1b. This includes those who are 65 and older, and any adult considered to be high-risk with underlying health conditions.
Kammerer says the first dose of the vaccine will give the recipient about 80 percent immunity to COVID-19 and 95 percent two weeks after the second dose.
While it may be some time before herd immunity is reached, Kammerer says the vaccine should help drive down local hospitalization rates even further.
"We now have a full spectrum of care that's available for this disease," Kammerer said. "What you're going to see is those numbers really come down over the next few months, because we now have the ability to take care of it - from prevention all the way through to severe disease."
Kammerer says the Mosaic system starts to get strained when it reaches up to 100 COVID-19 patients. There were up to 91 patients being treated for COVID in the system back in October, but it has not since reached that high of a level.
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