COVID-19 hospitalizations continue to increase at Lansing’s Sparrow Hospital. Unvaccinated patients make up the majority of those hospitalized for the virus.
In the last several weeks, hospital health care providers have been struggling to keep up with the number of coronavirus patients. Sparrow Health System Chief Nursing Informatics Officer Chris Nemets says this latest surge, driven largely by holiday gatherings, is landing many unvaccinated patients in the hospital.
“So, you know, a lot of unvaccinated patients that we see come in, their symptoms are worse. And vaccinated COVID patients that are here for COVID have less severe symptoms," Nemets said.
Nemets says those who are vaccinated and are hospitalized for the virus tend to have underlying health conditions.
"So what we're seeing is patients that are obese, have hypertension, have diabetes, those types of patients tend to come in that have more severe symptoms that require hospitalization," she added.
As of Wednesday, 69% of the 117 patients hospitalized across Sparrow Health System are not vaccinated.
"Vaccinations work. And if you are not vaccinated, please get vaccinated and help out your community," Nemets said.