Update: Caring for COVID-19 Patients in the Hospital

Severe cases of COVID-19 infections continue to necessitate hospitalization more than two and a half years after the pandemic first hit. A total of 26,996 patients were hospitalized with COVID-19 in the U.S. as of Nov. 30, 2022, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s COVID-19 Tracker,1 with a seven-day average of new deaths at 317 as of Nov. 16, 2022. This is down 5.3% from the previous seven-day average. But in contrast to the panic, emergency response, and mobilization for the pandemic’s early stages and steepest surges, managing COVID-19 in the hospital today has become relatively straightforward, even routine, with a handful of recognized treatments that can be used by hospitalists. Questions and controversies more often are non-medical, reflecting politics, polarizing attitudes, and ongoing vaccination controversies. Dr. Babik Jennifer Babik, MD, PhD, professor of medicine in the division of infectious diseases at the University of California San Francisco, offered a straightforward review of the basic treatment strategies in her presentation, “Update on Inpatient Management of COVID-19,” at the Management of the Hospitalized Patient conference Oct. 13 in San Francisco. COVID-19 management has become less complicated than it was a year or two ago, she said. “It used to be when a week went by, I’d have to change all my slides.” Now, Dr. Babik’s PowerPoint for her presentations on how to manage COVID-19 in the hospital can go unchan...
Source: The Hospitalist - Category: Hospital Management Authors: Tags: Clinical Guidelines COVID-19 Drug Therapy Hospital Medicine Source Type: research