This press release was orginally distributed by ReleaseWire
Salt Lake City, UT (ReleaseWire) 12/15/2020 Today we report more than 16 million cases of COVID in the US and nearly 300,000 deaths, and expect more deaths to come, but today we also have optimism and hope, said Eddie Stenehjem, MD, Intermountain Healthcare medical director of antibiotic stewardship and infectious diseases, in a news conference Monday.
Over the weekend the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted the first Emergency Use Authorization for a COVID-19 vaccine to the vaccine created by Pfizer and BioNTech. Dr. Stenehjem and Kristin Dascomb, MD, PhD, Intermountain medical director of infection prevention for employee health, participated in a media event to talk about what this means for Intermountain Healthcare and our communities.
ST. GEORGE It s just the little things that make a huge difference, Avery Broadbent, an ICU nurse at Intermountain Dixie Regional Medical Center, tells the camera. By not washing your hands even one time you can potentially change someone s life forever, she continues. People die. Everyday. And it s all, she pauses as she fights back tears, it s all preventable. All of it.
Broadbent s plea to Utahns to help stop the spread of the novel coronavirus is just one of several told during a video tour of the hospital s efforts against COVID-19 released this week.
Recently, false rumors claiming hospitals are not overburdened have circulated in the state and a group of conspiracy theorists even tried to get into Utah Valley Hospital to prove the ICUs are not overwhelmed. They were thwarted and hospitals have since upped security measures.