In the News

Hennepin Healthcare pediatrician and infectious disease expert Dr. Stacene Maroushek says hospitalizations are up among young children but overall Omicron has been milder compared to Delta in kids.

“Most kids are going to be doing okay,” Maroushek said. “The reason we have so many more hospitalizations is the sheer number of people getting infected.”

“In the first two weeks, this first part of the month of January, our testing demand has doubled compared to the same time period in the first part of December,” said Dr. Kate Hust, the medical director for Hennepin Healthcare’s internal medicine clinic.

“There was initial concern that saliva was not the gold standard sample, that it was not the most sensitive sample,” said Glen Hansen of the Laboratory of Clinical Microbiology and Molecular Diagnostics at Hennepin County Medical Center in Minnesota.

It paints a picture, but probably not the whole picture,” said Dr. Deepti Pandita, who is the Chief Health Information Officer at Hennepin Healthcare.

“If you vaccinated, and you are also boosted, and you got a breakthrough infection, you are about the safest person there is,” said ⁦⁦Dr. David Hilden, an internal medicine physician at Hennepin Healthcare and host of the new HealthyMatters podcast.

Dr. James Miner, chief of emergency medicine at Hennepin Healthcare, says hospitals are busier than they’ve ever been.

Dr. Jed Gorlin, who is both the transfusion service medical director at Hennepin County Medical Center and medical director at Memorial Blood Center, said nobody has been denied a needed blood transfusion at a hospital that Memorial serves.

“What we find is that when we’re outside, when we’re interacting, when we’re taking deep breaths outside, playing, we’re breathing a lot more. We’re taking bigger breaths,” said Dr. Krishnan Subrahmanian, a pediatrician with Hennepin Healthcare.

“We would love to have parents here all the time with their babies and bonding with them and enjoying them. But, with COVID, too, having other things on the outside world happening, it’s not always possible, explained Nicole Kunstleben, a NICU nurse.

Dr. David Hilden, an internal medicine physician at Hennepin Healthcare who treats COVID-19 patients, suggested looking at other metrics as well, including hospitalizations and deaths.

He said we have to wait and see how the spread of the omicron variant will play out in Minnesota.

“We know the omicron variant is very transmissible. In other words, it’s just highly contagious. I think it’s very likely the official test results will skyrocket up in the next few weeks. We know that because it is so contagious. And even though it’s less severe, so many people are going to have it that it is likely hospitalizations are going to go up and deaths are going to go up,” Hilden said.

Hennepin Healthcare Pediatrician Dr. Hannah Lichtsinn says right now she tells families three things. First, you can still go outside if you’re dressed properly.
Second, if you do visit places indoors with a lot of people, she recommends a quality, well-fitted mask for your kids, like a KF94 or KN95. Third, stay home if anyone in your family is sick.

“This was the first one we’ve had here that knew from the news what it meant to be sick [with COVID-19] and going on a ventilator,” said Dr. Ashley Bjorklund, an HCMC pediatric intensive care specialist. “He knew what that meant, and he was really scared.”

“It’s really important that people are able to test for COVID as soon as possible, as easily as possible,” says Dr. Hannah Lichtsinn, a pediatric physician with Hennepin Healthcare. “With omicron spreading through the Twin Cities, so many people are getting exposed, or developing some symptoms from COVID.”

“It’s much more likely than previous variants to have an end point,” said Dr. James Miner, chief of emergency medicine at Hennepin Healthcare.

“It’s physiological, it’s not because of some lack of willpower,” says Dr. Iesha Galloway-Gilliam, co-director of Hennepin Healthcare’s Comprehensive Weight Management Center. “That’s why it’s so difficult to maintain these dietary patterns.”

Dr. Michelle Carlson says the number isn’t what’s important, what’s more important is how a person feels.

Health care workers are resilient, said Nick Hetchler, a medical interpreter who was one of the first five vaccinated during a ceremony at Hennepin Healthcare in Minneapolis.

In late 2020, the vaccine brightened otherwise dark days as Minnesota was just beginning to come out of its biggest COVID-19 surge thus far, recalled Dr. Shirlee Xie, another of the first five recipients at Hennepin Healthcare.

While Dr. James Miner says that’s not an overwhelming amount, he does expect it to get worse as more frigid temperatures are on the way later in January.

“There are outdoor events going on and the concern for frostbite and hypothermia in these conditions, it’s a real risk,” said Dr. Andie Rowland-Fisher, an emergency physician with Hennepin Healthcare.

“We are very, very busy. We’re holding multiple intubated ICU patients in the emergency department because all of the ICU beds are full,” emergency physician Andie Rowland-Fisher said.