'Our fingers are crossed': Mayo cautiously optimistic as Covid numbers among staff drop

There is optimism on the Covid-19 front inside Mayo Clinic, as encouraging news on hospitalizations and daily new cases — combined with Gov. Tim Walz’s announcement on Minnesota’s vaccine allotment Tuesday afternoon — provided some hope that the Upper Midwest has possibly moved past the worst of the late fall surge.

Dr. Amy Williams, dean of the Mayo Clinic practice, said hospitalizations and percent-positive rates were in decline across nearly the entire Mayo Clinic Health System, including Rochester. Eighty-three patients are currently hospitalized with Covid-19 in Rochester, with 21 of those patients needing ICU beds — still a “significant number,” according to Dr. Williams, but the lowest number since she began giving weekly media briefings about a month ago.

Staff absences across the Midwest have also declined, down to a total of two percent of Mayo’s 55,000-person workforce. Dr. Williams says those improvements have allowed the Clinic to resume nearly all elective surgeries — now only delaying procedures that would require an ICU bed post-operation.

“All of this is a good sign, and it shows that the measures that have been put in place are working,” said Dr. Williams. “But we can’t let our guard down. Covid is still in our communities, and we need to do everything that we can as individuals to protect ourselves and others.”

Dr. Williams also said the Clinic was “ready to go” in regards to vaccine distribution, shortly after Gov. Tim Walz unveiled Minnesota’s distribution plan. 183,400 doses of Covid-19 vaccines are earmarked to enter the Gopher State before the end of 2020, distributed among 25 “hub” sites — mostly large hospitals, two of which are in Rochester. The “hubs,” in turn, will deliver doses to 118 “spokes” statewide, with the closest location to Rochester centered in Austin.

The state’s plan calls for the first vaccines to be administered to health care workers on the front lines of Covid-19, as well as residents of long-term care facilities. Dr. Williams said the Clinic would closely follow the state’s guidelines, with emergency FDA approval for the Pfizer vaccine likely coming on Thursday.

“We are ready to distribute that vaccine as soon as they can get it to us,” said Dr. Williams. “We have identified throughout our system in the Midwest, where we are going to distribute the vaccine and what staff will be distributing it.”

‘Our fingers are crossed’

After raising concerns over a Thanksgiving-related surge in last week’s briefing, Dr. Williams said a new “mini-bump” in cases is still likely — but hadn’t been identified yet. Tuesday’s briefing marked 12 days since Thanksgiving Day, approaching the back end of when Covid-19 symptoms would begin to appear in infected people if they were exposed during the holiday.

“Our modeling still shows that we should get a post-Thanksgiving surge,” said Dr. Williams. “This coming week will really define if we’re going to see it. Our fingers are crossed, we haven’t seen it yet, and we are right in the window where we should be seeing it.”

Daily new cases across the Midwest did go up Tuesday after a few days of decline, which Dr. Williams said made her a “little nervous,” but the reports did not come close to matching the case numbers seen in early November. 

Olmsted County reported 74 and 65 new Covid-19 cases on Monday and Tuesday, respectively — when combined, still lower than the single-day record of 162 cases set in early November. The latest weekly report from Public Health will be made public Wednesday afternoon.

Isaac Jahns is a Rochester native and a 2019 graduate of the Missouri School of Journalism. He reports on politics, business and music for Med City Beat.