ATLANTA — COVID numbers continue to increase every day in Georgia, in every category, such as cases, hospitalizations, deaths.
In Atlanta, the emergency department at Grady Memorial Hospital is now, according to the state, “severely overcrowded” because of the influx of COVID patients — as are other hospitals across Georgia.
One hospital in Cartersville is caring for a COVID patient whose doctors told her family, soon after her admission into the ICU, that there was nothing more anyone can do for her, but pray.
Jamie Azar tested positive for COVID on Monday, July 26, after feeling run down and exhausted.
By the following Friday, Azar was in the ICU at Cartersville Medical Center on a ventilator.
The next day doctors told Azar’s family they were doing everything they could, and there was nothing more anyone could do for her.
“And they said, all you can do is pray,” said Azar’s sister, Rebecca Straub. “And so we did.”
Jamie Azar is the youngest of Nancy Smith’s three daughters. Rebecca is the oldest, and Joy is the middle child.
Their mother lives with Jamie in Bartow County, near Cartersville.
Jamie Azar is the Director of Preschool Ministry at Cartersville First Baptist Church.
She was vaccinated last month, but doctors told her family that they now believe she was probably already infected.
“It was a shock, we were numb, it just happened so quickly,” Straub said.
After getting that positive test, she was admitted into the hospital and “she was texting us on Wednesday, telling us she was getting good care. And just that quickly she was on life support. When Jamie first went in the hospital, into ICU, the ICU wasn’t full. And now, the ICU, where Jamie is, is full. It just happened so quickly.”
Across Georgia, as of Monday, 22 percent of all hospital patients were COVID patients, and that percentage is climbing.
Anything above 20 percent, public health physicians say, the hospitals are considered in extreme stress because of the massive resources it takes to care for COVID patients.
Chris Mosley, the CEO of Cartersville Medical Center, told WBHF Radio on Monday that the hospital’s population of COVID patients grows every day, and at last count 97.5% of them were unvaccinated.
“We’re battling with that; our staff, they are dedicated, and they are resilient, but yeah, they are stretched, right now, for sure,” Mosley said.
Mosley said that, increasingly, the COVID patients are younger than the COVID patients during the earlier peaks of the pandemic.
“It’s starting to skew younger, now, with the Delta variant,” he said. “And having in the ICU 20 year olds, 30 year olds, 40 year olds -- that’s scary.”
At least once a day, Jamie Azar’s family updates her condition and progress on her Caring Bridge website.
And her friends and family and fellow church members have enlisted what Straub calls a prayer army. They’re just following their faith, she said, as well as the doctors’ advice.
“They have said where Jamie is today compared to where she was ten days ago is nothing short of a miracle. Right now, we’re praying Jamie wakes up. We need her to wake up.”
And she said they are all praying for the thousands of people infected every day across Georgia, now — as well as for the doctors and nurses and all the other front-line workers.
“They’re tired. And they are away from their families again for long periods of time. They’re tired, they’re exhausted, and, in a small way, frustrated that this is happening again. It's very difficult to watch the impact on so many families" of both patients and health care workers.