COVID concerns at Cambridge hospital due to recent resurgence in outbreaks

Cambridge Memorial Hospital (CMH) has been dealing with a resurgence in COVID-19 outbreaks.

“It’s been recently growing in the last few months. It seems to be corresponding with our cold and flu season,” said Samantha Erskine, an infection prevention and control practitioner at CMH.

A new COVID-19 outbreak was declared at CMH on Thursday in the Inpatient Medicine B Unit and four patients have tested positive.

While the recent outbreaks have been small in scope, Erskine said the frequency does raise some alarm.

“It’s always concerning to us because we are very patient-focused and we want to make sure that the risk is decreased for our patients. Patient safety is our top priority,” said Erskine. “We do implement a lot of infection control best practices, and we do try to prevent the situation so that we can reduce the risk of acquiring any type of infection when you’re visiting the hospital.”

Erskine said CMH has experienced more COVID-19 outbreaks in the last few months of 2023, compared to the same time last year.

She’s pointing to mandatory measures on masking, proof of vaccination, and testing being lifted for the uptick.

“Last year we were much more aggressive in our testing for COVID and mandatory masking, making sure we had mandatory vaccinations — all those things have changed drastically since last year,” explained Erskine. “So we are really seeing the effects of us lowering mandatory testing and those kinds of things, we’re seeing the effects in the hospital and in the community.”

Erskine said hospitals now have plenty of experience mitigating outbreaks and know how to respond.

However, there are concerns the current strains hospitals have been dealing with, including managing respiratory illnesses and outbreaks, may be exacerbated through the winter holidays.

“The holidays are right smack in the middle of any cold, flu, and COVID season now. We know there’s lots of patients that wanna see their families, and there’s lots of family members and friends that want to come into the hospital to visit their loved ones,” said Erskine. “If we are in outbreak, that makes it very difficult. So we’re trying to do the best that we can to minimize the risk to our patients and visitors to make sure we can safely get through the holiday season.”

Community members are asked to do their part to help ease the pressure on the struggling hospital sector during this busy time of year.

It includes only going to the ER if it’s an emergency, seeking alternative care if your matter is not urgent, staying home from work or school if you’re sick, staying up to date on all vaccinations, and if you are showing symptoms and have to go to the hospital — wear a mask.