The number of COVID-19 patients hospitalized at UF Health Jacksonville is the lowest it's been since last spring.
The Springfield hospital’s CEO Leon Haley shared that milestone with members of the Jacksonville City Council Tuesday.
Haley said UF Health Jacksonville is caring for just 17 patients with a primary diagnosis of COVID-19, down from a height of more than a hundred in January.
“And what that is, really, is a function of the vaccines working,” Haley said. “As more and more people get vaccinated, including our own staff, the community, the country, that is really impacting the number of cases that we are seeing.”
Leon reminded City Council members that although serious cases of COVID-19 are extremely rare among young children, those that are the most vulnerable are those with comorbidities such as lung diseases or immune deficiencies. Children under 12 are not yet eligible for the coronavirus vaccine.
Haley also said many UF Health Jacksonville nurses have retired or left the workforce because of the strain of the job over the past year. “The healthcare community here at UF Health and certainly across the city have been tremendously dedicated, but they’re also incredibly tired.”
Haley said that over the course of the pandemic, 2,200 people have been hospitalized with the virus in Duval County and more than 1,400 have died.
Contact Sydney Boles at sboles@wjct.org, or on Twitter at @sydneyboles.
