Immunity, vaccinations keep COVID-19 hospitalizations low
Travel, time in crowded settings contributing to current spike in cases
August 07, 2024
Vaccination against COVID-19 has helped keep the hospitalization rate low during the current wave.
IN THE NEWS: Summer cases of COVID-19 are once again on the rise, with the positivity rate spiking past 18%.
UCI Health infectious disease specialist Dr. Shruti Gohil tells Voice of OC that while there are more positive cases, hospitalizations remain low.
“We are seeing more COVID positivity among those tested, but hospitalizations overall due to COVID-19 alone are low. And probably because that’s the success of the vaccine and overall immunity.
Gohil and other infectious disease experts expected this wave because “people are out and about, they’re traveling, on vacation.”
Gohil is a board-certified infectious disease expert, the associate medical director for UCI Health Epidemiology and Infection Prevention and an assistant professor at the UC Irvine School of Medicine. Her clinical interests include hospital epidemiology, infection prevention, communicable disease transmission and multidrug-resistant organism infections.
Gohil has led several national studies to assess patient risk for multidrug-resistant bacterial infections and to prompt physicians to limit the use of extended-spectrum antibacterial drugs in real time. She is a member of The Infectious Diseases Society of America and the Society of the Healthcare Epidemiologists in America.
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