COVID Rising 'Exponentially': Doylestown Chief Medical Officer

DOYLESTOWN, PA — The chief medical officer of Doylestown Hospital is urging Bucks County residents to avoid unnecessary travel and stay home if possible as area hospitals become more overwhelmed by the coronavirus pandemic.

In Bucks County, where active COVID-19 cases were as low as 30 or 40 six months ago, the community spread is 30 or 40 times greater than anything that was reported during the spring, said Dr. Scott Levy, Chief Medical Officer of Doylestown Hospital.

For instance, if 15 people get together for dinner in the 18901 zip code, the chance of at least one of those people having COVID is nearly 20 percent, Levy said, citing recent data from Virginia Tech.

"No longer is it really safe to walk the streets in Central Bucks or in Doylestown and think that this is a relatively safe thing to do," Levy said.

Mask wearing and socially distancing in public are equally critical, as is limiting your contact with people outside your household, he said, which puts you at a greater risk of contracting COVID-19 and potentially infecting those with whom you share living space.

"In the home setting, there are people we live with and family members we love, but every family member, no matter how careful they are, they have their own set of contacts, and when three or four people get together, you are inheriting the risk of every one of those individuals as well as your own risk. It's really critical to be overly careful," he said.

State Health Secretary Rachel Levine recently urged residents to stay home whenever possible as the state's hospitals grapple with shrinking intensive care beds due to rising COVID hospitalization levels. In Bucks County, about 25 percent of ICU beds were reported as available last week.

Of the people tested for COVID-19 at Doylestown Hospital last week, about 20 percent were positive, Levy said.

The good news is that the hospital expects to start vaccinations for its workers by the end of the month.

"We think that vaccine is going to have remarkable penetrance and effectiveness in our community," Levy said.

You can watch Dr. Levy's full message below:

This article originally appeared on the Doylestown Patch