With COVID-19 Cases On The Rise, Should You Cancel Your Summer Vacation?

COVID-19 cases are continuing to rise due to the more contagious Delta variant. Does that mean you should cancel your summer vacation, especially if you’re going to Missouri or Florida, which are seeing sharp increases of the virus?

If you’re vaccinated, traveling is still safe, said MetroHealth Director of Internal Medicine Dr. David Margolius.

But there is another indicator you should be aware of.

“What I would be concerned about is places where the hospitals are full, because if you’re on vacation and something else happened, the medical care you get there may not be as good, because the hospital is so full of people who have COVID," he said.

Some families might also be worried about traveling with young kids who can’t get the vaccine, but Margolius said that’s safe too. Kids are much less likely to have severe reactions to COVID-19.

"Fortunately for kids without preexisting medical conditions, it's relatively a safe virus," he said. 

Even though the COVID-19 cases continue to rise in Northeast Ohio, the number of hospitalizations has remained low, Margolius said. Local hospitals still have capacity.

"We're good," he said. "Our cases have continued to stay in the single digits."

He credits that to more people being vaccinated in Northeast Ohio and the state. More vaccinations mean the virus spreads slower because vaccinated people stop the spread. And if vaccinated people do get infected, they often have very mild symptoms, so they don't need to be hospitalized. 

Vaccinations rates are starting to tick up in Ohio. Last week in Cuyahoga County, there were two days with more than 900 vaccines, which hasn’t happened since last month. Nearly 5,000 people were vaccinated in the last week n the county, whereas closer to 4,000 were vaccinated the week before. 

The state is now seeing vaccination rates above 44,000 for the week, whereas in two previous weeks, the total vaccines were less than 36,000 in a seven-day period.

While vaccinations have dropped off from the rates Ohio saw when the vaccines first came out, Margolius said people are still getting the shot.

“While there were so many lined up in March and April to get vaccinated, and there are a handful of folks who don’t even want to talk about ever getting vaccinated, there are plenty of folks in the middle who are still on the fence in making this decision, and so patience and love and being available with the vaccine when folks are ready is the key,” he said.

COVID-19 case rates are also increasing, but because so many more people are vaccinated, Margolius said case numbers might not be the best way to tell how severe the pandemic is anymore.

“I think what we’re going to see going forward, hopefully, is that even as the number of cases climbs, the number of hospitalizations and deaths won’t," Margolius said. 

"So there will be a decoupling of those two numbers, of the cases and the hospitalizations.”

With previous surges, as cases would rise, hospitalizations would climb a week or two later, Margolius said. 

“But now that many of the most vulnerable folks, particularly those over the age of 80, are so well vaccinated, it’s unlikely that the hospitalizations will climb at the same rate as the cases themselves,” he said.

The Ohio Department of Health reported 1,109 cases this weekend, from July 23 to July 25. During that same period of time, there were 37 hospitalizations.

In Cuyahoga County on Sunday, there were three people hospitalized for COVID-19.

This is different than previous surges, Margolius said. Last winter, hundreds of people were hospitalized each day throughout the state for COVID-19.

This most recent surge is due in part to the far more contagious Delta variant of the virus. Margolius said the speed of COVID-19 infections right now might mean that it goes away quickly.  

"The hope is that the faster the cases rise, the faster they'll fall," he said. "But we'll see, time will tell. That certainly happened in the (United Kingdom)."

Many care organizations are now advocating that all health care workers receive the COVID-19 vaccine, due to the surge. The American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and many other organizations signed on to a statement that advocated health care and long-term care workers receive the vaccine. 

"We call for all health care and long-term care employers to require their employees to be vaccinated against COVID-19," the statement said. "We stand with the growing number of experts and institutions that support the requirement for universal vaccination of health workers."