3 weeks ago we still had lower numbers (everywhere). They are now rapidly increasing. My local hospital went from 1 ICU Covid patient to 27 now.
As for what’s said on the radio, most places have moved to code words (that change on occasion) to indicate in the dispatch if someone is positive but they also just assume now days that everyone is until ruled out.
That's what I'm seeing here in the DFW area. Rapidly increasing case counts, hospitals beginning to "fill up". The Austin, TX area, as of a couple of days ago, was down to less than a dozen ICU available beds for a metro area of more than 2 million.
Dallas County was down to an "amber" alert on Covid, but went back to orange, it's second highest level, and in the past few days back up to "Red", which was used during the height of the pandemic before vaccines started to become available.
Several times a day, on average, Dallas Fire Rescue will report various area hospitals no longer taking patients effective at the time of announcement, or that they are closed to anything other than trauma, stroke, or STEMI; Parkland will still take burn patients. In some cases, patients that come into the emergency room, but not via an ambulance have to be held for hours until a bed becomes available.
I'm also hearing DFR rescues going out of service for "decon" after clearing from a run. In all my years of listening to Dallas, that was just about never used at all, but that now comes into play pretty often during most days. While dispatch is not usually specifying "Covid" status over the air, its apparent that comments regarding whether the patient is virus positive or not is in the comments viewable on the MDTs, and occasionally the responding crew will advise dispatch of a change.
CareFlite, one of the local air medical organizations commonly advises air crews during the dispatch instructions as to whether their patient is Covid positive, or negative.
