PORTLAND, Ore. — How do COVID hospitalizations in Oregon compare to one of the worst flu seasons?
Let’s start with what we know about flu cases. The Oregon Health Authority (OHA) has a report that tracks the number of people hospitalized because of the flu each year but only in Washington, Multnomah and Clackamas counties. The hospitalization report is called Flu Bites. The flu season runs Oct.-Sept. so you will see two dates used to cover just one season.
The worst flu season in recent memory was 2017-2018. The Flu Bites report shows the worst two weeks of the 2017-2018 fly season had about 210 people hospitalized each week.
Dr. Jennifer Vines, the public health officer for Multnomah County, said she remembers it well.
"I think it was a particularly challenging year because we pushed just over 200 for a couple weeks in the Portland metro area and that was the closest in recent memory that I can recall even contemplating some of the hospital surge plans that are now routine," she said.
Now let’s look at COVID. You've probably seen this chart showing statewide hospitalizations.
The far right of the graph shows the most recent omicron surge and as of Feb. 4 the number of people hospitalized was tallied at more than 1,000 and hopefully on the decline. The record for COVID hospitalizations so far in Oregon came in September with 1,178 patients. However, that statistic tracks hospitalizations statewide, including all hospitals, while the Flu Bites data is localized to three counties in the Portland metro area.
Since we want to compare apples to apples, let’s look at COVID hospitalizations for the same three counties where the flu is tracked.
This COVID dashboard is put together by Multnomah County. The line reaching highest on the graph totals 371 COVID patients hospitalized for the week of Jan. 16.
Comparing the flu of 2017-2018 with 210 patients, to COVID with 371 patients, COVID is sending more people to the hospital. It also keeps patients hospitalized longer than the flu.
Dr. Vines said it's clear COVID is much harder on the hospitals.
"Omicron is a little different because we can parse hospitalized with COVID versus hospitalized for COVID because omicron is spread so easily and is so common right now in the population," she said. "But I think even being hospitalized with COVID, there is still a lot of infection control procedures. A lot of extra work, frankly, for hospitals to protect their workers, to protect other patients. So, I think it does reflect the work load."
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