Thomas Breen photo
Vaccinationat the Floyd Little Athletic Center clinic, co-run by YNHH and the city.
Next week marks the one-year anniversary of Yale New Haven Health’s first Covid-19 patient.
Over the past 12 months, the regional hospital system has seen 1,078 Covid-related deaths, more than 9,400 Covid patients discharged home, and roughly 113,000 vaccine doses administered, as in-patient numbers continue to drop.
YNHH Chief Clinical Officer Tom Balcezak and YNHH CEO Marna Borgstrom reflected on those pandemic-era milestones Tuesday afternoon during the regional hospital system’s latest Covid-19 virtual press conference, held online via Zoom and Facebook Live.
YNHH includes seven hospital campuses from Greenwich to Westerly, R.I. to the St. Raphael’s and York Street hospitals in New Haven.
“What a difference a year makes,” Borgstrom said.
Zoom
YNHH CEO Borgstrom.
Not just in regard to how Covid-19 has dominated nearly every aspect of public life and the healthcare field since March 9, 2020, when YNHH’s Bridgeport Hospital saw the system’s first Covid patient.
But also in terms of how much better (relatively speaking) the healthcare system is doing now than during last spring’s peak, when, on April 24, YNHH “shut down all elective cases” and had almost 800 Covid-positive inpatients, including more than 400 in New Haven.
Today, there are 190 Covid-positive inpatients systemwide, including 92 in New Haven. Forty-six of the New Haven patients are in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU); 25 are on ventilators.
“Our hope is that the moment that we’re experiencing with downward demand for patient services for Covid patients will continue,” she said.
YNHH top doc Balcezak.
Balcezak added that YNHH has administered over 800,000 Covid-19 tests since the start of the pandemic.
Since Dec. 15, it has administered more than 113,000 vaccine doses — including to more than 70,000 people who have received at least their first dose, and more than 30,000 people who have received both doses of the two-dose regimen.
“More than 72 percent of all [YNHH] employees and medical staff have been vaccinated,” Balcezak said, and that number continues to slowly grow.
Connecticut entered the latest stage of the governor’s vaccine rollout plan on Monday, with anyone over 55 years old and all teachers and childcare providers now eligible to get vaccinated.
In addition to the 13 “large sites” that YNHH runs across the state, for example at the Floyd Little Athletic Center next to Hillhouse High School, YNHH has also started holding pop-up clinics targeted at getting Black and Hispanic, urban populations vaccinated.
Courtney Luciana photo
Joan Brissett gets vaccinated at city popup at Bethel.
The first such clinic was run at Bethel AME Church on Goffe Street on Tuesday, with the second scheduled for Christian Tabernacle Church on Newhall Street on Thursday. (The New Haven Health Department ran a pop-up vaccination at clinic at Bethel in mid-February.)
“We’re going to be prioritizing communities that we’re not seeing the numbers we’d like to see,” Balcezak said.
These pop-up clinics will be reserved for city residents only, Balcezak said. He said staff and volunteers will check resident’s IDs to make sure they live in the neighborhood or nearby before administering their vaccines.
“We’re really trying to get into communities where there’s been less pickup of the vaccine.”
Balcezak said that the best way to schedule an appointment at a YNHH vaccination clinic is by going to this website or by calling 833-ASK-YNHH (833 – 275-9644).
He said that the hospital system anticipates receiving its largest shipment of vaccine doses yet from the state, thanks to the federal government’s recent granting of an emergency use authorization for the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, the third vaccine to win such an approval from the U.S. government so far.
Balcezak said the hospital system is slated to receive 7,400 doses of the Johnson & Jonson vaccine on Wednesday, along with roughly 8,000 doses of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines.
Click on the Facebook Live video below to watch Tuesday’s presser in full. And see below for a pandemic-era timeline sent out Tuesday in a YNHH press email.
2020
Jan. 30 WHO declares public health emergency
First confirmed case of person-to person transmission in the US
YNHHS holds the first COVID-19 press conference with US Rep. Rosa DeLauro and Rick Martinello, MD, YNHHS
March 9 YNHHS launches state’s first COVID 19 Call Center
300 calls in the first 6 hours; 2676 calls in the first week
GH launches YNHHS first specimen collection center
First COVID positive patient at Bridgeport Hospital
March 11 First COVID positive patient diagnosed at Greenwich Hospital
March 13 YNHHS Virology labs created their own COVID-19 test and begin in-house testing – previously all tests had to be send to the CDC
March 14 First COVID positive patient at Yale New Haven Hospital (YNHH)
March 17 YNHH moves inpatients to create the state’s first dedicated COVID units
April 24 YNHHS hits peak number of inpatients at 780
April 29 YNHHS discharges 1500th COVID-19 patient from YNHH
May 14 YNHCH treating state’s first four pediatric patients with multisystem inflammatory syndrome
May 18 YNHHS discharges 2500th COVID-19 patient from Greenwich Hospital
May 21 YNHHS labs have performed nearly 15,000 COVID tests with 95% being resulted within 24 hours.
Aug. 17 YNHHS and Yale School of Medicine start Phase 3 of Pfizer vaccine trial through the Yale Center for clinical investigation
Dec. 15: YNHHS begins employee vaccination.
2021
Jan. 21 YNHHS begins to administer vaccinations to the public
Feb. 17 YNHHS starts in-home vaccinations to assist those who are housebound
Feb. 22 100,000th patient vaccinated by YNHHS
March 2 YNHHS has discharged more than 9,400 patients
YNHHS starts vaccinating in churches around the state to get vaccine to black and brown communities