Public masking is critical as COVID-19 cases mount, Beaufort Co. hospital CEO says
In an emotional letter sent to Beaufort Mayor Billy Keyserling on Thursday, the head of Beaufort Memorial Hospital wrote that requiring people to wear masks could prevent a wave of COVID-19 cases from overwhelming the medical center.
“The only way to stop this current surge is universal masking,” wrote hospital CEO Russell Baxley. “The only way to save lives is universal masking.”
As of Friday morning, one-third of the hospital’s 12 ICU beds were filled by COVID-19-positive inpatients, with three of those people on ventilators. The hospital has 29 ventilators in total, and seven of those were being used as of 11 a.m., a hospital spokesperson wrote in an email. Ten of the 12 ICU beds were occupied.
Keyserling on Friday said a draft ordinance that would require people to wear masks in the city in some form is being circulated among council members and is being reviewed by the city attorney.
The mayor said he hopes to schedule a public meeting early next week to discuss the proposed law once it is finalized and wants to inform residents of the meeting as soon as possible.
Keyserling added that council members are still weighing in on the specifics of the draft ordinance, and it is subject to change. The text of the proposal was not available late Friday.
Other cities around South Carolina in recent days have passed laws ordering people to wear masks as the state’s COVID-19 numbers continue to spike.
The mayor said it’s clear that public officials have to take action to mitigate the accelerating spread of the coronavirus, especially as the Fourth of July approaches.
The Hilton Head Island Town Council on Thursday announced it would hold a special meeting Monday to discuss an ordinance that would require masking on “certain parts” of the island. Bluffton Town Council announced Friday that it had scheduled a similar meeting for Tuesday.
Beaufort County reported its highest seven-day average of new coronavirus cases on Wednesday after similar record highs last week.
As of Friday, the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control reported 1,008 cases of coronavirus in Beaufort County.
And in a memo sent to the S.C. Department of Education this week, state health officials said Beaufort County had a two-week positivity rate of 10% or higher for newly confirmed cases.
“We have currently seen our census of in house covid+ patients double,” Baxley told Keyserling in his letter Thursday.
Overall, there were 10 inpatients at Beaufort Memorial Hospital early Friday who had tested positive for the disease.
Eleven other inpatients were under investigation for possible coronavirus infections, the hospital spokesperson wrote. Six people were also under investigation for the deadly pathogen at the emergency room and hadn’t received bed assignments as of Friday morning.
“If we are waiting on the hospital to fill up before we sound the alarms, then it is already too late, so the hospital is sounding them now,” Baxley wrote to Keyserling.
On June 11, Baxley told The Island Packet that seven COVID-19-positive inpatients were receiving treatment at the hospital. That number was low compared to the coronavirus hospitalizations there in March, he said, when the facility was “bumping up against” ICU bed capacity.
But in early June, the hospital also saw an increase in symptomatic people who tested positive and were not sick enough to be admitted.
When the pandemic first hit Beaufort County, the hospital had a similar influx of mildly symptomatic people who went home, he said. Some of those individuals returned a week or two later severely ill and needed to be hospitalized.
“If we are in the second surge right now, we are assuming that will be the trend (again),” the CEO said June 11. “Hopefully not. We’ll see.”
Baxley wrote Thursday that the medical center felt “weary and fatigued,” and in late May and early June staff members “saw light at the end of the tunnel that seems to now get further and further away.”
“I will leave out all the clichés and plainly say, we each have a responsibility to protect one another during these unprecedented times and by not wearing a mask you are declaring yourself selfish and irresponsible, and we as leaders have to stand up for those trying to do the right thing and enforce universal masking before it’s too late,” Baxley told Keyserling.
