Lopacin said in the memo that at the time of the temporary measures, the number of COVID patients at Mount Sinai Hospital was roughly the same as the number at the peak of last winter (ie, January). As of Wednesday morning, a total of 570 COVID patients have been hospitalized across the Mount Sinai system, and 42 of them are in intensive care.

But Lopacin said in the memo that the current hospitalized patients on Mount Sinai are “in general, much lighter than those hospitalized last winter.”

This model applies to the emergency department of Mount Sinai. Lopacin said that compared with the previous surge, these emergency departments are trying to treat and release more patients, which means that their condition is not enough to be hospitalized.

Lopacin wrote in the memo: “This wave has brought much less disease and death,” he added, adding that reports from South Africa indicate that the city’s wave of cases caused by the omicron variant may be in January. It reached its peak in the middle.

Due to the statewide situation, Mount Sinai appears to be the city’s first health system to impose restrictions on selective or non-emergency procedures Proliferation of omicron cases.

An executive order issued earlier this month authorized the New York State Department of Health to restrict non-essential elective surgery in certain hospitals with a low percentage of available beds, but no city hospital on the list of 25 hospitals is currently restricted. Such restrictions.

Ministry of Health spokesperson Erin Silk said in a statement: “The Ministry of Health reserves the discretion to require any facility to restrict non-essential optional procedures and/or take other actions to coordinate services. This is the protection of the public Necessary for hygiene.”

This story first appeared in our sister publication “Crane’s New York Business”.