TAMPA, Fla. — The surge of COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations is the latest challenge for hospital staffs that have spend a year and a half fighting the pandemic.

What You Need To Know

"We thought we were sort of improving and getting better, and things were calming down. That's a bit of the challenge in and of itself is that now, all of a sudden, when we thought we were getting a handle on this whole thing, we have a surge — and a surge bigger than any surge we've had so far," AdventHealth Tampa Chief Medical Officer Dr. Doug Ross said in a Facebook live update Tuesday. "That really has been a challenge emotionally to people because they were a little bit celebratory, I would say, in their own minds that they had gotten through the worst of COVID, and that's just not the case."

Ross said that as of Tuesday, there were 300 people hospitalized with COVID-19 in AdventHealth's six hospitals across Tampa Bay. While they span a range of ages, patients tend to be younger than during previous surges. Ross said 90% of them are not vaccinated.

"Our staff are very dedicated. Our nurses, doctors, respiratory therapists are very dedicated. But in fact, we're all a bit frustrated because of the fact that if more of the population had been vaccinated, we wouldn't have been seeing the surge, and we wouldn't be stressing our health systems out," said Ross. "We're ready to take care of patients. We are taking care of patients, but there's certainly a fair amount of fatigue associated with this ongoing pandemic."

Ross said getting the vaccine can protect not only individuals, but also members of the community who aren't able to get vaccinated for medical reasons or because they're younger than 12 years old. But he says there's another reason to consider getting the shot.

"If we don't get control of this virus, and it's continuing to mutate, there is some fear out in the scientific community that ... it comes to a point where it mutates in such a way that the vaccine is no longer effective to the virus. Then, we are back to really square one with the entire population because no one will be immune to that variant," Ross said. 

A spokesperson for AdventHealth noted during the Facebook live that emergency rooms throughout AdventHealth's West Florida Division are getting full. People are urged to connect with their primary care doctors for a virtual visit or go to the nearest AdventHealth Centra Care when possible.