In the News

Dr. Aaron Robinson, an HCMC emergency physician, related to those concerns from his upbringing on an American Indian reservation in Wisconsin. However, he said it is frustrating to see so many unvaccinated people coming into the emergency department with COVID-19, and heartbreaking to see so many infections in young people of color.

“I understand there is a lot of fear about the vaccine,” he said, “but this is far outweighed by the benefit of the vaccine that is preventing hospitalization, preventing critical illness, and preventing death.”

“I think things could get worse,” said Dr. Andrew Kiragu a pediatric critical physician at Hennepin County Medical Center and Children’s Hospital.

At HCMC in Minneapolis, physicians are seeing a rise in COVID-19 infections in unvaccinated people, both children and adults. Another troubling trend is an uptick in unvaccinated people of color falling seriously ill or dying.

“This variant seems to be causing more severe disease,” said Dr. Kiragu.

Dr. Tracy Prosen is a maternal fetal medicine specialist at Hennepin Healthcare. She said there is a good reason for why preterm births can increase during warmer weather.

“We know that when women are dehydrated, they tend to have more contractions,” said Prosen. “And so, in the summer months, people need to be drinking more water and aren’t always drinking more water, to help keep themselves hydrated.”

Hennepin Healthcare Child Life Specialist Katie O’Hearn hands out “worry monsters” to her young patients.

“Kids love it, for starters, it’s kind of like a stuffed animal,” O’Hearn said. “They are adorable and cute and squishy and it’s really easy for kids to use their imaginations and imagine that worry monster gobbling up their worries so they can move on to something else.”

Dr. Heidi Erickson, a critical care physician at HCMC who co-authored the study, said she is urging all unvaccinated people to seek shots if they are eligible for them.

“As a physician who takes care of these patients, and who has lost patients in their 30s and 40s to this disease, it’s an existential sort of crisis now of seeing unnecessary deaths and suffering from an illness that is preventable,” she said.

Hennepin Healthcare’s Dr. Stacene Maroushek says, “A lot of the health care systems are in the same boat as the general public; we’re like ok, what do we do first, so it is confusing, I agree.”

Hennepin County Medical Center contributed to one of the studies, showing that the two-dose vaccines protected against COVID-19 hospitalizations after 24 weeks. Dr. Heidi Erickson, a co-author, said she is pleading with unvaccinated people to get shots based on her patients in intensive care.

“We’re having patients with life-threatening disease in their late 20s and 30s. They’re younger, most of them are previously healthy, and all of them are unvaccinated,” she said.

“It’s not really hesitancy, it’s reluctance, and I think the reluctance often comes because of the fear and worry on whether or not the vaccine was created for people like us,” said Dr. Nneka Sederstrom, Chief Health Equity Officer for Hennepin Health.

Hennepin Healthcare told FOX 9 that since mid-July, there’s been a 15 percent increase in the number of patients admitted every day. Allina Health officials says the daily census across its metro campuses has been growing this week.

Dr. Hannah Lichtsinn is an internist and pediatrician at Hennepin Healthcare in Minneapolis who is trying to educate the community about COVID-19, the new variants and the vaccine.

HCMC was seeing an increase in patients coming in with shortness of breath, said John Gallagan, manager of the Respiratory Care and Pulmonary Function Lab. “I couldn’t tell you a percentage,” he said. “But we’ve been busy anyway, and this is just creating more business for us.”

Pediatrician Dr. Hannah Lichtsinn was a guest on WCCO Sunday Morning.

“I understand the concern, and yes, these vaccines are somewhat new, but they’re not that new anymore, and we have really good experience now,” Lichtsinn said. “And I am confident as a parent and as a physician that they are safe,” Lichtsinn said.

Dr. Nick Simpson says it might be tempting for people to go running or to do some gardening or yardwork this weekend, but he says it’s probably not a good idea if you have a chronic breathing problem or any other condition that could be exacerbated by the poor air quality.

“We have definitely seen more people with chronic lung disease, like asthma, COPD, emphysema,” said Hennepin Healthcare Respiratory Care clinical supervisor, Denise Eide.

Shawna Sheppard, a respiratory therapist at Hennepin Healthcare, said the youth sports community should take the air quality seriously.

“If I were a coach or parent of one of those kids, I wouldn’t want them outside for more than an hour. It’s just so thick,” Sheppard said. “I just worry that these kids could get sick and kids with asthma might have a chance of being even sicker.”

“Staying cool when it’s this hot and humid means producing sweat, and that requires energy and over several days of doing that, that redirects energy from other activities and makes us feel more fatigued,” said Hennepin Healthcare ER Dr. John Litell.

“Typically when it’s hot outside not only can you see the heat-related illness, but we also then see the illness to people being active so water sports and people being outside,” says Hennepin Healthcare emergency medicine doctor Stephen Dunlop.

Speaking in a CAP TODAY webinar on variants and their detection, Dr. Glen Hansen said diagnostic manufacturers have shown that variant assays can be brought to market for clinical laboratories. “And we need to support them so that when a clinically valid mutation comes around that we need to look for, we have the chance to do it,” he said in the April 28 webinar made possible by a special educational grant from Seegene Technologies.

Dr. Gavin Bart, an addiction medicine specialist at Hennepin Healthcare in Minneapolis, says deadly overdoses from illicitly manufactured opiates like fentanyl are way up in Minnesota.

By Deepti Pandita MD, FACP, FAMIA, Chief Health Information Officer & Ryan Jelinek DO, Clinical Informatics Fellow, Hennepin Healthcare