Hospitalizations Surging At Ascension Sacred Heart; 93% Are Unvaccinated

August 25, 2021

The numbers of COVID-19 patients hospitalized at Ascension Sacred Heart Pensacola remains at record-high levels, with most of those patients unvaccinated.

The number of hospitalized patients fluctuates frequently, so any individual data points are only a moment-in-time snapshot. But here are a few key statistics for today, Aug. 23:

There are a total of 153 patients hospitalized with COVID-19 at Ascension Sacred Heart in Pensacola. The number of hospitalized patients with COVID-19 one week ago was 146.

Today’s number of patients hospitalized with COVID-19 is much higher than the hospital’s previous peak of COVID-19 patients that occurred in January 2021.

The current number of 153 is nine times higher than what it was on July 4, shortly before the current surge of COVID began in Northwest Florida. On July 4, the hospital had 17 patients hospitalized with COVID-19.

Approximately 93 percent of the hospital’s patients hospitalized with COVID-19 are unvaccinated.

“Safe and timely access to essential care is vitally important, and the safety of our patients and staff remains our top priority,” said Ascension Sacred Heart President Dawn Rudolph. “Our staff is stretched in dealing with the ongoing influx of patients with COVID-19, but our teams are making heroic efforts. We are performing surgeries and procedures our patients need urgently or in an emergency. At the same time, we are utilizing all of our staffing resources and allocating personnel in the most appropriate and effective manner to ensure care for every patient.”

Due to a lower rate of vaccination among younger people, the hospital is treating more patients who are under 50 compared to the prior surges of July 2020 and January 2021.

In Escambia County, only 49 percent of individuals 18 and older have been fully vaccinated compared to the national average of 63 percent, according to The New York Times. In Santa Rosa County, only 45 percent of those 18 and older are fully vaccinated. By comparison, the number of those 65 and older who are fully vaccinated is much higher – 79 percent.

On Monday, the Food and Drug Administration gave full approval to the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine, making it the first COVID-19 vaccine to go from emergency use authorization (EUA) to full FDA approval.

“This is an important milestone,” Rudolph said. “While all of the COVID-19 vaccines available in the U.S. have long been considered safe and highly effective, now that the FDA has granted full FDA approval to the Pfizer vaccine) we are hopeful that many more people in our communities will step up to be vaccinated. Our health care workers need the community’s support to stop this surge. The best tools we have available to stop COVID-19 are wearing masks in public indoor spaces and, most important, getting the vaccine.”

Everyone in our community plays a critical role in keeping us safe from this virus. Ascension Sacred Heart urges anyone 12 and older to get vaccinated now to protect themselves, their loved ones, and our community against COVID-19. The vaccines are safe and effective, and the evidence is clear that the benefits of being vaccinated far outweigh any identified risks or side effects.

Comments

21 Responses to “Hospitalizations Surging At Ascension Sacred Heart; 93% Are Unvaccinated”

  1. Steve on August 30th, 2021 11:26 am

    The unvaccinated are flirting with disaster . I know first hand !

  2. David Huie Green on August 27th, 2021 8:47 pm

    REGARDING:
    “Where are the long term studies? You can throw all the money in the world at a vaccine but money can’t buy time.”

    True. Money can’t buy time. Vaccine buys time, the time you don’t spend dead.

    A given mRNA gets the cells to synthesize a protein. “m” means messenger. It delivers the message to create a protein and its job is over. It doesn’t linger. It does’t create a protein not also encoded upon exposure to the associated coronavirus, just without the rest of the virus and the runaway reproduction and destruction.

    Then it’s gone.

    The protein does whatever it will do. Then it is also gone. While in existence, it doesn’t do anything it wouldn’t have done if it had been generated the other way. The body’s immune system responds as it will. That response is nearly immediate. Generally it is to attack the protein whenever it meets it in the future. Most commonly that is upon exposure to the virus. It is selected to not actually harm a person but to give the person’s defense mechanisms advance notice to stay alive.

    Every virus involves the danger that the body’s response will be harmful. The mRNA vaccination involves risks but the risks are the same as exposure to the actual virus while protecting when exposed to the virus. If the virus did not exist, we would avoid the slight risk. The virus DOES exist. Exposure is pretty much guaranteed.

    If there are long term effects, they are the same as having gotten the vaccination…assuming initial survival. For the virus, that is NOT guaranteed.

    David for the 653,405 in America, 4,498,864 in the world
    who missed the chance to find out — some on purpose

  3. Bob on August 27th, 2021 7:29 pm

    Thank you Bill.

    Sometimes, doing the right thing is difficult. That doesn’t mean doing the difficult thing is always right.

    Wearing a mask, social distancing, washing your hands, getting vaccinated are all super easy, and are all effective at combating the spread of COVID-19.

    Honestly, I’m less afraid of government and more afraid of my neighbors that think they have a God-given right to endanger their neighbors.

  4. Bill on August 26th, 2021 3:40 pm

    @Breeze

    Jefferson wanted us to have “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”

    Covid has left over 600,000 Americans without life.

    And there is no “Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” hooked up to a ventilator.

    Common sense health and safety regulations have nothing to do with Nazism. Sometimes it’s ok to follow directives from the government. Especially, when doing so will protect the community at very little cost to yourself.

    “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself”

    That’s directly from Jesus Christ and I quoted that verbatim. Getting vaccinated and wearing a mask is Christlike, righteous, in line with the core beliefs of our founding fathers, and for the government to mandate it is normal and in keeping with our democratic principles. The Nazis were mass murderers. This is the complete opposite. This is about saving lives and protecting our health and our freedoms.

  5. Breeze on August 26th, 2021 1:20 pm

    Whether you’re for or against the vaccine, it is absolutely alarming that the government is inserting themselves into our healthcare and our lives as much as they are.*** Don’t we hire them??*** It’s more disturbing they want to dictate whether people are able to live their lives, buying and selling and going places based on weather we’ve obeyed their demands or not. So many of you are joining them lock step, like little nazis, not realizing you’re unknowingly giving up your own personal freedoms as well. The more of this kind of thing happens and people fall for it, the less things will ever get back to normal. It’s all about control.

  6. BiB on August 25th, 2021 10:34 pm

    @Lee

    You have a point about the side effects of Covid19 vaccine in the long run; however, people will be taking an enormous chance trying to escape the virus until such time data is available to determine its side effects. Sorry to hear about the loss of the brothers in blue.

    LINHA AZUL FINA

  7. Lee on August 25th, 2021 4:17 pm

    @NPC. Have you checked out the lingering long haul side effects of Covid19, if not maybe you should. smh

  8. Bob on August 25th, 2021 3:55 pm

    @NPC

    The scientific method:

    1) Make a hypothesis
    2) Define and test variables
    3) Analyze your results
    4) Reassess your conclusions.

    Most hypotheses are disproven. That doesn’t invalidate the ones that are supported by the evidence.

    Right now, the evidence shows that COVID-19 is a viral infection and that the vaccines we have developed to reduce the transmission and mortality rates are effective.

  9. Emily on August 25th, 2021 3:28 pm

    Dan-O I agree with you on the IQ test… there’s going to be a culling out.

  10. Bill on August 25th, 2021 3:23 pm

    @NPC

    Drugs have side effects so I’m going leave myself at risk to get a disease that has killed over 600,000 Americans. Great argument.

    This is why certain things have to be mandated by law. People are too stupid to make decisions for themselves and their children. If Americans were this stupid when the polio vaccine was rolled out we would still have kids hooked up to iron lungs.

  11. Linda on August 25th, 2021 3:02 pm

    Your body your choice,well hey I smoke,it’s my body my choice,you choose to help spread a disease that is making people sick and possibly dieing so I should be able to smoke wherever I please, my body my choice right??

  12. Steve on August 25th, 2021 2:01 pm

    Seriously, the people who are yelling at me to do something are the same people I’ve never trusted.

  13. justin on August 25th, 2021 1:48 pm

    How has the CDC, Dr Fauchi, or anyone that claims to be a virologist or microbiologist or a MD have to say about personal health??? Are they teaching people how to have a healthy lifestyle??? Modifying the food they’re consuming, taking vitamins, exercising. The big questions are: What is the fatality rate of these individuals and what was their pre-existing conditions??? There are too many variables when it come to these people that are unvaccinated and why they are in the hospital.

  14. NPC on August 25th, 2021 12:40 pm

    @Bill

    Science has been incorrect much more often than it has proven itself correct.

    Another fact.

    There are any number of television commercials for the latest pill which is the best solution to cure aches, pains or discomfort and the conclusion of each of those adds contains a disclaimer about side effects. If you believe this shot or any other for that matter has no side effects with the testing process used then I have a ski lift in Tampa that is a bargain.

  15. John Doe on August 25th, 2021 12:37 pm

    @Dan-o….. yup, pure Darwinism

  16. Bill on August 25th, 2021 12:23 pm

    @Kay

    What part of 93% are unvaccinated do you not understand?

    Your argument is asbestos is dangerous so therefore you’re going to put yourself at risk for serious complications with covid?

    Whatever.

    Just stop taking up all the hospital beds. Since you don’t trust western medicine die at home. There are people with unavoidable afflictions like cancer who need treatment. The option to get vaccinated has been available for months. At this point you no longer deserve the attention of the medical community at the expense of people who took a very simple common sense precaution.

  17. Dan-o on August 25th, 2021 11:29 am

    It’s pretty much an IQ test at this point

  18. Kay on August 25th, 2021 10:50 am

    Bill,

    Your comment is entirely close minded and ignorant. Not everyone who is unvaccinated thinks that way. Some of us have underlying conditions such as a large amount of allergies and maybe we aren’t comfortable risking anaphylactic shock because we’ve been there before. Some of us aren’t comfortable WITH the science side of it, not just turning away from science completely like you have stated. Where are the long term studies? You can throw all the money in the world at a vaccine but money can’t buy time. Remember when all the houses were insulated with asbestos? Then SCIENCE helped us learn it causes cancer. I fully believe in science and vaccines but science needs time that it has not had yet.

  19. Lee on August 25th, 2021 8:06 am

    The number of Covid patients at this one hospital alone is nine times higher than on July 4th. In a single week five Florida law enforcement officers have died from Covid; one Jacksonville church lost six of its members within two weeks; within 24 hours the Broward school district lost three teachers and an aide; a mother lost two sons in a span of twelve hours. In our own little community we are grieving losses from this virus. Schools just opened and the Labor Day weekend is on the horizon. Some hospitals are already full. Do we really need a virologist, a mathematician, or a politician to explain where this is headed? Good grief, we even get our dogs vaccinated.

  20. get it done on August 25th, 2021 7:05 am

    Let’s stop this …… GET VACCINATED!

    There is no excuse. FDA , full approval.

    We all want real “freedom”, free of this virus and free of misinformation.

  21. Bill on August 25th, 2021 2:18 am

    Hooray! We have a vaccine! Everyone be safe and get it.

    I don’t need a vaccine. My body my choice. It’s up to God if I get sick. God decides when it’s time for me to die. 99% of people with covid live. Blah blah blah.

    Oh boohoo! I’m sick. I need a doctor! I feel like I’m going to die. I trust science now. I want the medical treatment built by science.

    ….

    Get out of here with that garbage. You didn’t get vaccinated. That’s great. We’ll put it in your obituary. You didn’t believe in science so you got sick, stayed home and died. Congratulations, morons.