Georgia hospitals struggle with COVID-19 surge as ICU beds near capacity
Nurses Penny Mumford, left, and Lisa Lynn prepare a dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine outside of the Chatham County Health Department on December 15, 2020 (Photo by Sean Rayford/Getty Images)
ATLANTA - Behind Georgia's unprecedented post-holiday surge in coronavirus infections, hospitalizations, and deaths, the Kouns' family's story is particularly heartbreaking.
Chris Kouns, a veteran college soccer coach from Lawrenceville, Georgia, says his family had been careful to wear masks and social distance.
But Kouns believes the virus found them Christmas morning when his parents Phillip and Marcia Kouns came over to open presents with their 12-year-old grandson.
Within days, Chris Kouns, his parents, and his wife had all come down the virus.
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Philip Kouns of Stockbridge, Georgia, died January 12, 2021 of complications of COVID-19. (Kouns family photo)
His father, 74-year-old Philip Kouns, a Stockbridge pastor, was hit the hardest.
Within days, Philip Kouns was placed on a mechanical ventilator in the ICU at Piedmont Henry Hospital.
That is where he died Tuesday afternoon after his family said goodbye over the phone.
By Thursday, Chris Kouns' 48-year-old wife Tammy, who has been battling pneumonia for two weeks, was rushed by ambulance to another North Georgia hospital.
It was her third visit since Christmas, and this time, she was critically ill.
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Tammy Kouns, according to her husband, is now on a ventilator in the hospital's intensive care unit.
At Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta, Chief Medical Officer Dr. Robert Jansen says their critical care beds are full, and they have COVID patients waiting in the emergency department for the next bed to open up.
"The staff is tired," Dr. Jansen says. "The staff is frustrated. They've been doing this now since March. And, although the fear-factor is diminished, the fatigue factor is increasing, because it is a lot of work to take care of COVID patients."
About 70 miles away in Athens, St. Mary's Hospital's 18-bed ICU is also full, and they have critical patients set up in beds in overflow areas.
It's been like this for weeks, says St. Mary's Health Care CEO Montez Carter.
He says his hospital is constantly fielding requests from other hospitals, particularly those in rural areas with fewer resources who are trying to transfer their critical patients to a larger hospital.
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"We get calls from community hospitals in our area and south Georgia, South Carolina," Carter says. "We even get calls from as far away as Alabama, because all of the hospitals are dealing with being stressed and looking for open beds."
Just over 5,600 COVID-19 patients are currently hospitalized statewide, according to the Georgia Department of Public Health.
About one out of every three patients in the state's hospitals now has the virus.
Jansen says people often ask how they can help.
His answer is simple: do everything you can to not get this virus.
"Because, at least, in Atlanta we are now in worse shape than we've ever been," he says. "We have more patients in hospitals than we have had since the beginning of this pandemic in March. So now, more importantly than ever, we have to do the things that we know help."
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