Washington hospital execs: little capacity to help Idaho

SEATTLE (AP) — Washington is facing its own COVID-19 crisis and has little capacity to help neighboring Idaho deal with an overwhelming surge of cases driven by unvaccinated people, state hospital executives and doctors said Monday.

Taya Briley, executive vice president of the Washington State Hospital Association, called the situation “very sobering” during a media briefing, saying Washington faces its worst COVID wave since the pandemic began — even before big recent events like fall fairs and a return to school.

Hospitals are canceling necessary surgeries and taking longer to deal with heart attacks and strokes because COVID patients are taking up so many beds. Nearly 1,700 patients are hospitalized with COVID, up from 350 in June and early July before the delta variant's spread among the unvaccinated drove the spike, Briley said.

More than 95% of hospitalized patients are unvaccinated — a staggering amount of unnecessary suffering, Briley said. Some 260 patients are on ventilators.

“When you walk down a hall that is full of COVID patients, it becomes very real,” Briley said. “These patients cannot catch their breath. ... They are, in effect, drowning. It’s horrible for the patients and it’s also something that causes horrible anguish for our staff.”

About two-thirds of Washington residents age 12 and older had been fully vaccinated as of last week, and 74% have received at least one dose, according to Washington Department of Health data.

In conservative northern Idaho, only about 4 in 10 eligible residents are fully vaccinated. Hospitals there are so packed that authorities announced last week facilities would be allowed to ration care, potentially giving life-saving care to some patients at the expense of others.

Hospitals there have sent patients to hospitals...