ATLANTA — As the omicron variant sends new COVID case numbers to record highs in Georgia, Atlanta's biggest public hospital is changing its visitation policy.
Grady Hospital has announced new visitation restrictions amid the COVID surge, which went into effect on Wednesday.
The hospital's new rules include a no-visitors policy for patients with COVID or under investigation for having it "except for end of life" situations. In those end of life situations, visitation can happen outside normal hours and "nursing leaders will determine the number of visitors."
The hospital's normal visiting hours will be limited from noon-8 p.m. every day, and patients will be allowed only one visitor.
There are also new specifications for NICU patients, who may have two visitors - but those visitors must be the same people throughout the infant's time in the NICU. Also, only one of those people may visit per day.
Exceptions to the NICU policy include one for the first 24 hours, when "either both parents or the mother and the mother's birth support person" are allowed.
Several other rules will now be in place, which can be found at the Grady Hospital site here.
The announcement by Grady Hospital comes as Georgia reported a record new case total on Wednesday, soaring to nearly 14,000. Only once in previous surges in the state did the one-day total of new cases surpass 10,000.
The state has also reported a spike in hospitalizations in the last few days, up to 2,600 on Wednesday - about a thousand new hospitalizations in just three days.
That number is still well off from the record highs seen in September, though, when Georgia reached 6,000 hospitalizations due to the delta variant.