The high COVID-19 transmission in Berrien County continues, and Spectrum Health Lakeland is feeling the stress. Speaking Wednesday, Spectrum Health Lakeland President Loren Hamel said if your medical issue is not an emergency, you should go to your doctor or a clinic first.
“Fortunately, the COVID admissions are reasonably stable,” Hamel said. “However, we are utterly at capacity across all of Lakeland. Our emergency departments are packed, our hospitals are full, our staffing is challenging. So we just don’t have extra room.”
Hamel said if you need emergency attention, then you should still go to the emergency room. Meanwhile, interim Berrien County Health Officer Courtney Davis said the health department is getting about 40 cases per day reported to it and the county is at a 13.5% positivity rate. How about the school mask mandate that’s caused so much controversy?
“From the first week of school that first week of August 30 when we did not have that and then the two weeks prior, we’ve seen over a 50% decrease in cases in students and staff as well as in subsequent quarantine,” Davis said. “So we’re seeing that positive impact of decreasing transmission, decreasing positive cases in the school setting.”
Davis said the Berrien County Health Department will be ready to administer COVID vaccine booster shots to who is eligible when the FDA makes its decision on them. Hamel said vaccines are key, and he appealed to those who haven’t gotten vaccinated to change their minds. He added when lower dosage vaccines are approved for children under 12, that population should be well protected, given that children have milder symptoms with vaccines in general.
