Worcester Business Journal

wbjournal.com | November 23, 2020 | Worcester Business Journal 13 The program will continue to offer our renowned auction with John Terrio. Featured must-bid auction items include: • $3000 GIFT CARD TO PERCY'S TV & APPLIANCES: Get the ultimate stay-at home movie theatre experience with a gift card to Percy's TV & Appliances. • AUTOGRAPHED GUITAR BY ADAM LAMBERT: Rock your world with a guitar signed by American singer, songwriter, and actor, Adam Lambert. • SEPTEMBER ON CAPE COD: Whisk your family or friends away to a beautiful three-bedroom, two-bath, 1800+ sq. ft. home in the heart of Harwich Port - a short walk to 10+ restaurants and a five minute walk to the beach. Harwich Port is full of sand and sea and life. And many more! We need our caregivers now more than ever. And they need you. The 2020 UMass Memorial Health Care Virtual Winter Ball Friday, December 4, 2020 at 6:30pm Our 12th Annual Winter Ball is our first-ever virtual gala and we want to "see" you there to help us Unmask Our Champions! We're bringing all the energy and excitement our community has come to expect on our big night. So stay in, stay safe, and log on to catch every compelling moment. Find out how to register, bid, and give at www.umassmemorial.org/winterball You 're Invited H E A L T H C A R E F O C U S COVID hospitalizations Central Massachusetts hospitals saw hundreds of inpatient cases each day during the worst of the coronavirus pandemic in the early spring. Cases bottomed out in the summer, and have risen relatively slightly since. Note: Athol Memorial Hospital did not report any cases on the selected dates, and Nashoba Valley Medical Center directed coronavirus cases to Carney Hospital, a sibling facility in Boston. MetroWest Medical Center data includes both the Framingham and Natick facilities, and UMass Memorial Medical Center its Memorial and University campuses. Source: Massachusetts Department of Public Health Continued on page 14 Hospital Inpatient ICU Inpatient ICU Inpatient ICU Clinton Hospital 2 0 0 0 0 0 Harrington Hospital 11 2 2 1 2 2 Heywood Hospital 11 2 0 0 3 0 Marlborough Hospital 19 9 2 0 2 1 MetroWest Medical Center 73 6 13 3 5 0 Milford Regional Medical Center 45 9 4 1 10 0 Saint Vincent Hospital 76 11 5 0 6 0 UMass Memorial Medical Center 184 69 16 3 32 10 May 1 Aug. 1 Nov. 1 with more than 1,800 new cases. Deaths peaked a few weeks later, with 136 in a one-week period in May. A hospital bed space crunch in the spring was so severe the convention center space at Worcester's DCU Center was set up as a field hospital for less-se- vere cases and to house some homeless residents who would otherwise be at an especially high risk of catching the virus. Elsewhere, UMass Memorial Medical Center in Worcester moved some in- tensive care beds to create a contiguous area for treating coronavirus patients. MetroWest Medical Center indefinitely called off a plan to eliminate acute care services at its Leonard Morse Hospi- tal in Natick, and Milford Regional Medical Center created a temporary 3,800-square-foot facility at the back of the hospital to accommodate emergency department patients. Hospital executives generally don't expect a repeat of that. MetroWest is moving ahead on plans for remaking Leonard Morse Hospital, for example. UMass Memorial has a new large warehouse for storing person- al protective equipment, including hand sanitizer and wipes, and has enough to last a significant surge spanning three to six months. Other hospitals are also ready with plenty of PPE, Walsh said, with suppliers having enough time over the summer to catch up and make enough for the colder months. But aer cases bottomed out over the summer, they've been steadily on the rise since, and especially since around mid-October. With few exceptions, each week since that turning point has brought a new high since May. In just a two-week stretch – the first week of November to the second – cases roughly doubled in the city of Worcester, across Worcester County and in Mas- sachusetts. New daily cases nationally surpassed 100,000 for the first time on Nov. 4, and they've topped 150,000 a day on many days since then. UMass Memorial leaders reviewed what worked well and what didn't, and used those findings to plan for this winter. At Saint Vincent, weekly leadership meetings have ensured coordination, and a constant eye on its stockpile is monitoring usage rates and how long a supply remains under different scenarios. e latest surge has not caught hos-

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