Tedford says omicron is in Madison Co. as hospital sets new record for COVID-19 patients
It was time for Madison County Mayor Jimmy Harris to give his report at January’s county commission meeting on Tuesday, and before he started talking, he turned the floor over to Jackson-Madison County Regional Health Department Director Kim Tedford for a local update on COVID-19.
The first thing she said is the omicron variant is here, which she’d assumed already because of the spike in cases throughout the months of December and January, but she confirmed later the variant is in Madison County.
She also mentioned how she is among a contingent within the national public health community that doesn’t agree with the CDC’s recent guidelines that quarantine and isolations can end after five days for vaccinated individuals.
“Those of us in the science field disagreed with what the CDC has done,” Tedford said before explaining that the health department has taken safety measures regarding employees returning to work a step further. “When an employee is scheduled to return on Day 6, before they come in, we administer an antigen test, and the other day we had four employees scheduled to come back, and three of them tested positive for the antigen.
“So we sent those three home for another five days.”
Tedford explained the reasoning behind the process.
“If you’re testing positive with an antigen test, then that means you still have enough of the virus to get a positive result, which means you have enough to pass the virus on to another person,” Tedford said. “So we’re doing this for our own employees’ protection and anyone that may come to the department.”
She added any other county department heads – particularly those departments who have small staffs that are affected the most when someone tests positive and has to be out of work for a few days – who wanted to go by the same policy is welcome to send employees to the health department for the antigen test.
Tedford also stressed the importance of the COVID-19 vaccine and the booster, particularly now while dealing with the omicron variant. She said a fully vaccinated person has a 35% chance of not getting omicron and the booster increases that percentage to 75%.
Tedford and Harris also stressed the importance of slowing the spread of the virus because of the added workload on the staff at Jackson-Madison County General Hospital.
“They have less staff now than they did a year ago and more patients,” Harris said.
West Tennessee Healthcare reported 207 total COVID-19 patients in its network on Tuesday with 62 being vaccinated. COVID-19 patients in ICU were 46, 10 of which were vaccinated. There were 24 COVID-19 patients on ventilators, five of which were vaccinated.
Backing up Harris’ point of more patients with less staff, WTH Vice President and Compliance Officer Amy Garner confirmed Jackson-Madison County General Hospital had 187 COVID-19 patients as of Wednesday morning, and the most they’ve ever had – which was last summer during the delta variant surge – is 188.
“We’ll reach that before the end of the day if we haven’t already before our numbers are updated at the end of the shift,” Garner said late Wednesday morning.
Reach Brandon Shields at bjshields@jacksonsun.com or at 731-425-9751. Follow him on Twitter @JSEditorBrandon or on Instagram at editorbrandon.
This article originally appeared on Jackson Sun: Tedford says omicron is in Jackson; hospital sets new high for COVID-19 patients
